She slipped her hand down, and held her father’s collar as though he, too, were a dog, and gave it an affectionate little tug.
"It’s not so bad to have one, is it?" he said. "To know where there is a snug harbor, and an old fellow who thinks you are perfect, and everything you do is right. You will get a lot of criticism for this, and I suppose Washington will boil over--but to my thinking, you couldn’t have done better, and I am thankful for your courage. If you don’t love a man, for God’s sake, don’t marry him, even if you’re both walking up the aisle, and he’s twiddling the ring!--To tell the truth, I wasn’t a bit partial to Von Piller, and found it pretty hard to sit tight, and be told he was forty different kinds of a paragon."
"My darling Papa," she observed sweetly, "you’re never going to like anybody who wants to marry me, and it’s sure to cost me some worry when the right person does come.--Do you suppose he ever will?"
"In spite of the awful record I have made? Aunt Sarah says I am branded as a coquette, and no decent man will ever have anything more to do with me."
Phyllis fondled Watch’s ears, which were long and silky, and tried the effect on dog-beauty of overlapping them on his head.
"Papa, what’s the matter with me? Why haven’t I any sense? Why am I not like other girls?"
"You are in love with love--and are rather in a hurry."
"Oh, Papa--shut your eyes--I am love-hungry. I want to love--I’m crazy to love. Only--only--"
"I hope it’s that. If it isn’t, I’m going to have a bad time of it. It seems so useless; this getting engaged and then hating the poor wretch.--It’s such a terrible waste of energy and heart-beats all round."
"What a nuisance I am, to be sure! I’ve exhausted everybody’s patience except yours, and that’s getting thin. It will end in my living alone in a shanty with nothing but dogs, and the faded photographs of the men I’ve thrown over. Aunt Sarah called me an awful name; called me an engagement-buster; said that the habit would grow and grow till I was a horrid old maid with nothing to tease but a parrot.--Though I’d love to have a parrot--two of them--and raise little parrots! Little fluffy baby parrots must be adorable. Papa, let’s buy a pair to-morrow, and you’ll teach the he-one to swear, and I’ll teach the she-one to be gentle and submissive and always have her own way. And Papa--?"