"I am so sorry, Howard," she had said. The sight of him had set her lips trembling. He patted her shoulder.
"Poor Elinor," he said. "Poor old girl! We're a queer lot, aren't we?"
"All but you."
"An obstinate, do-and-be-damned lot," he said slowly. "I'd like to see my little girl, Nellie. We can't have another break in the family."
He held Lily in much the same way when she came down, an arm around her, his big shoulders thrown back as though he would guard her against the world. But he was very uneasy and depressed, at that. He had come on a difficult errand, and because he had no finesse he blundered badly. It was some time before she gathered the full meaning of what he was saying.
"Aunt Cornelia's!" she exclaimed.
"Or, if you and your mother want to go to Europe," he put in hastily, seeing her puzzled face, "I think I can arrange about passports."
"Does that mean he won't have me back, father?"
"Lily, dear," he said, hoarse with anxiety, "we simply have to remember that he is a very old man, and that his mind is not elastic. He is feeling very bitter now, but he will get over it."
"And I am to travel around waiting to be forgiven! I was ready to go back, but--he won't have me. Is that it?"
"Only just for the present." He threw out his hands. "I have tried everything. I suppose, in a way, I could insist, make a point of it, but there are other things to be considered. His age, for one thing, and then--the strike. If he takes an arbitrary stand against me, no concession, no argument with the men, it makes it very difficult, in many ways."
"I see. It is wicked that any one man should have such power. The city, the mills, his family--it's wicked." But she was conscious of no deep anger against Anthony now. She merely saw that between them, they, she and her grandfather, had dug a gulf that could not be passed. And in Howard's efforts she saw the temporizing that her impatient youth resented.
"I am afraid it is a final break, father," she said. "And if he shuts me out I must live my own life. But I am not going to run away to Aunt Cornelia or Europe. I shall stay here."
He had to be content with that. After all, his own sister--but he wished it were not Jim Doyle's house. Not that he regarded Lily's shift toward what he termed Bolshevism very seriously; all youth had a slant toward socialism, and outgrew it. But he went away sorely troubled, after a few words with Elinor Doyle alone.