Her Father's House Read Online Free PDF Page A

she would be at the office.
    â€œYou frightened me!” she cried. “Are you all right?”
    At the sound of her voice, a feeling somewhere between relief and laughter choked his own voice. “Listen to me. It's important. You've been away, now I'm away and it doesn't make any sense.”
    â€œWhat doesn't make any sense? What are you talking about?”
    â€œThat we aren't together, don't you see? We need to be together, we're perfectly matched. Dammit! I'm not coming up with the right words. Oh, Lillian, I miss you! Make believe I'm on my knees before you right now and I'm handing you a box with a ring in it and I'm asking you to set the date. And make it soon. I mean soon, thirty days and not a minute longer. Will you?”
    â€œOh, darling, I'm crying. I'm sitting here in the office crying. I can hardly talk. But I don't need thirty days.”
    He flew home with a ring from one of London's best jewelers in his pocket. Every so often when he touched the small velvet box, he felt a surge of pride, and more than that, of gratitude, as he saw himself again departing from his hometown, boarding the plane to New York, and buying the leather-bound
Jefferson
on Fifth Avenue. Now he was climbing up in the world, traveling all over it, and soon would be coming back every night to the most marvelous wife in the prettiest little home anybody could desire. And he thought humbly, I hope I deserve it all.
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    Lillian's plans were short and simple. She suggested that they be married in a clergyman's study and leave at once for a honeymoon in any place that Donald should choose.
    He, on the other hand, while agreeing about the ceremony, did suggest that they make more of a celebration out of their wedding day by giving a gala dinner to their friends in some gala place.
    â€œBut I don't know any of your friends except Cindy and a couple of people from your office,” he added.
    â€œThat's because I don't have many friends. You know I live quietly. I'm as much of a stranger in this city as you were when you first arrived here.”
    â€œBut you have relatives on Long Island. You said you had a lot of them.”
    â€œDid I? Then I was exaggerating. Anyway, I never see any of them.”
    He was curious. “You never said why you don't.”
    â€œThey're not my kind.” Lillian shrugged. “We're entirely different. We have nothing in common.”
    â€œBut you do have one thing in common. You have some of the same ancestors, blood ties.”
    They were both reading in the room that Donald liked to call “the library.” From where he sat he caught in the lamplight a small, ironical twist on Lillian's lips, and it made him feel stubborn.
    â€œBlood's thicker than water? Cliché,” she said.
    â€œA cliché is a cliché because there's truth in it. After my mother died and I was truly, totally alone, I can't tell you how much I wished I had somebody who belonged to me. He could have been almost anyone but an ax murderer and I would have welcomed him.”
    â€œWell, you do have those third cousins out in—where is it?—Nebraska?”
    â€œWyoming. And I've seen them one time in my entire life. But your relatives live on Long Island and you grew up practically next door, you said.”
    â€œNevertheless, I don't want them.”
    The firm tone was irritating. “Who are these people? What's this all about? Why the secrecy?”
    â€œThey're just people, for heaven's sake! What are you hinting at, that they're all convicts or something? They're just plain, ordinary people.”
    â€œOf course they are. But can't you say something about them? What do they do, for instance?”
    â€œI don't know what they do. I'll find the address and phone, since you're so persistent, and you can find out all about them yourself. Just please stop foisting them on me.”
    â€œI'm not ‘foisting' anything at all on you, Lillian. But I must say,