But this exclusion gave
her a keener pang; she had shared so much with him before,
had been so important to him always. And now he could
propose, with perfect equanimity that she should go to
America with the Halifaxes.
"But you could not get away by the twenty-first," she
returned, trying to take it for granted that the idea
included him.
"Oh, I don't propose going," Mr. Cardiff returned from
behind his newspaper.
"But, daddy, they intend to be away for a year."
"About that. Lady Halifax has arranged a capital itinerary.
They mean to come back by India."
"And pray what would become of you all by yourself for
a year, sir?" asked Janet brightly. "Besides, we were
always going to do that trip together." She had a stubborn
inward determination not to recognize this difference
that had sprung up between them. It was only a phase,
she told herself, of her father's miserable feeling just
now; it would last another week, another fortnight, and
then things would be as they had been before. She would
not let herself believe in it, hurt as it might.
Mr. Cardiff lowered his paper. "Don't think of that," he
said over the top of it. "There is really no occasion.
I shall get on very well.
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