Her Father's House Read Online Free PDF

you're a little bit touchy today.”
    â€œI'm not touchy! You're pestering me. It's not like you.”
    He was nonplussed. Here we are, we who love each other beyond words—yes, beyond words, he thought—and we're quarreling over nonsense like this. Perhaps after all he really was making a fuss about nothing. Don't be a pompous jackass, Donald. If for some reason she wants to be rid of these relatives, what difference need it make to you? What business is it of yours?
    Yet he could not resist one more remark. “You never even talk about your parents.”
    â€œThey're dead.”
    â€œIs that a reason never to talk about them?” he asked very gently.
    â€œWhat is there to say? She was a housewife, he was a salesman, and they lived, just lived, the way millions of people do.”
    All of a sudden, he saw a flashback of himself at ten or twelve, on the day when, rummaging perhaps where he was not supposed to rummage, he came upon the telegram from the War Department:
We regret to inform you
. . . He had just stood there staring at the piece of paper in his hand with the world gone strangely still and gray around him. Of course she did not want to talk. Why open the wound to bleed again?
    He went over and put his arms around her. “Forget it, darling. What a stupid quarrel! We're both nervous and overexcited, that's all it is. So let's have our little party right here. I'll have my group—they're all crazy about you. And you'll have anybody you want, or nobody.”
    â€œJust a few favorites from my office, and Cindy with her boyfriend. Unless you mind having them?”
    â€œOf course I don't.”
    â€œWell, you're not very fond of her, so I thought—”
    â€œNo, I'm not fond of her. But I haven't a thing against her, which is altogether different. She's your friend, and that's enough. You know what? I just thought of something. I have to introduce you to Mr. Pratt. Get off from work a few minutes early one day, tomorrow if you can, and stop in for a minute. I want to show you off.”
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    â€œI found her,” Donald announced to Mr. Pratt the next morning. “You've been urging me, and now I'm doing it. We're being married at the end of the month.”
    On the shelf behind the other man's smile and handshake stood the photograph of his family. Even more than his achievements in this office, the picture seemed to define the man, as if to say:
This is what it's all about. Love, loyalty, family.
And now, I, too, thought Donald. Lillian and I, a family.
    â€œShe's going to call for me here this afternoon. If it's convenient, I'd like you to meet her.”
    â€œConvenient? Donald, I'd be really hurt if you didn't introduce me.”
    So she came, and the introduction was made. In her plain, dark blue dress, with pearls in her ears and gloves on her hands—for as she later explained, she had assumed that so proper a man as Augustus Pratt would approve of gloves—she was perfect. Everything, from her well-modulated voice to her well-chosen words, was perfect.
    It bothered Donald the next morning that Augustus Pratt, such a master of language, had so little to say.
    â€œA beautiful young woman. How long have you known her?”
    â€œWe met in April. Sort of love at first sight.”
    Pratt nodded. “I wish you everything I could wish for my own son, Donald.”
    He could have said more, couldn't he? He could have been warmer. Donald was slightly annoyed. But then, sometimes when he was preoccupied, Pratt did have a way of turning down the thermostat.
    Events moved happily along. They were married on a golden day in a mahogany-paneled study just off Fifth Avenue, each with one friend from their respective offices as witness. Then through the mild afternoon, they walked back hand in hand, up the avenue toward the park, and turning eastward, arrived at their home where a welcoming crowd was waiting.
    The apartment overflowed with splendid