But where was I to work? Fate settled that for me however.
_There is no armour against fate_;
_Death lays his icy hand on Kings_.
_J. Shirley; Dirge_.
Previously, however, mother and I had had a talk. She
sailed into my room one evening, dressed for dinner, and found
me in my _robe de nuit_, curled up in the window seat admiring
the view of the ocean.
"Well!" she said. "Is this the way you intend going to
dinner?"
"I do not care for any dinner," I replied. Then, seeing she
did not understand, I said coldly. "How can I care for food,
mother, when the Sea looks like a dying ople?"
"Dying pussycat!" mother said, in a very nasty way. "I
don't know what has come over you, Barbara. You used to be a
normle Child, and there was some accounting for what you were
going to do. But now! Take off that nightgown, and I'll have
Tanney hold off dinner for half an hour."
Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place.
"If you insist," I said coldly. "But I shall not eat."
"Why not?"
"You wouldn't understand, mother.
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