to support me; to play the game
as they say. What I object to is your impulsiveness, your
outspokenness with the people. Remember, everybody here is your
dependent. It is always a mistake to be open and frank with
dependents. They don't understand it, and if they do, they presume
upon it.

"Be guided by my experience; no one could justly accuse me of any lack
of affability or friendliness in dealing with the people here--but they
never know what I am thinking of!"

"Admirable!" murmured Colina, "but I'm not a directors' meeting!"

"Colina!" said her father indignantly.

"It's not fair for you to drag that in about my standing by you and
supporting you!" she went on warmly. "You know I'll do that as long as
I live! But I must be allowed to do it in my own way. I'm an adult
and an individual. I differ from you. I've a right to differ from
you. It is because these people are my inferiors that I can afford to
be perfectly natural with them. As for their presuming on it, you
needn't fear! I know how to take care of that!"

"A little more reserve," murmured her father.

Colina paused and looked at him levelly. "Dad, what a fool you are
about me!" she said coolly.

"Colina!" he cried again, and pounded the table.

She met his indignant glance squarely.

"I mean it," she said. "I'm your daughter, am I not?--and mother's?
You must know yourself by this time; you must have known mother--you
ought to understand me a little but you won't try--you're clever enough
in everything else! You've made up an idea for yourself of what a
daughter ought to be, and you're always trying to make me fit it!"

Gaviller scarcely listened to this. "I'll have to bring in a chaperon
for you!" he cried.

"Oh, Lord!" groaned Colina. "Anything but that! What do you want me
to do?"

"Merely to live like other girls," said Gaviller; "to observe the
proprieties."

"That's why I couldn't get along at school," muttered Colina gloomily.
"You might as well send me back."

"You're simply headstrong!" said her father severely. "You won't try
to be different."

"Dad," said Colina suddenly, "what did you come north for in the first
place, thirty years ago?"

The question caught him a little off his guard. "A natural love of
adventure, I suppose," he said carelessly.

"Perfectly natural!" said Colina. "Was your father pleased?"

Gaviller began to see her drift. "No!" he said testily.

"And when you went back for her,"