“I’m engaged to Cyril; we want to be married this week.”

It was exactly as if someone had punched him in the ribs; and at the sound he made she hurried on: 

“You see, we must be; he may be going out any day.”

In the midst of his aching consternation, he admitted a kind of reason in her words.  But he said: 

“My dear, you’re only a child.  Marriage is the most serious thing in life; you’ve only known him three weeks.”

“I know all that, Daddy” her voice sounded so ridiculously calm; “but we can’t afford to wait.  He might never come back, you see, and then I should have missed him.”

“But, Noel, suppose he never did come back; it would only be much worse for you.”

She dropped the little cross, and took hold of his hand, pressing it against her heart.  But still her voice was calm: 

“No; much better, Daddy; you think I don’t know my own feelings, but I do,"’

The man in Pierson softened; the priest hardened.

“Nollie, true marriage is the union of souls; and for that, time is wanted.  Time to know that you feel and think the same, and love the same things.”

“Yes, I know; but we do.”

“You can’t tell that, my dear; no one could in three weeks.”

“But these aren’t ordinary times, are they?  People have to do things in a hurry.  Oh, Daddy!  Be an angel!  Mother would have understood, and let me, I know!”

Pierson drew away his hand; the words hurt, from reminder of his loss, from reminder of the poor substitute he was.

“Look, Nollie!” he said.  “After all these years since she left us, I’m as lonely as ever, because we were really one.  If you marry this young man without knowing more of your own hearts than you can in such a little time, you may regret it dreadfully; you may find it turn out, after all, nothing but a little empty passion; or again, if anything happens to him before you’ve had any real married life together, you’ll have a much greater grief and sense of loss to put up with than if you simply stay engaged till after the war.  Besides, my child, you’re much too young.”

She sat so still that he looked at her in alarm.  “But I must!”

He bit his lips, and said sharply:  “You can’t, Nollie!”

She got up, and before he could stop her, was gone.  With the closing of the door, his anger evaporated, and distress took its place.  Poor child!  What to do with this wayward chicken just out of the egg, and wanting to be full-fledged at once?  The thought that she would be lying miserable, crying, perhaps, beset him so that he went out into the passage and tapped on her door.  Getting no answer, he went in.  It was dark but for a streak of moonlight, and in that he saw her, lying on her bed, face down; and stealing up laid his hand on her head.  She did not move; and, stroking her hair, he said gently: 

“Nollie dear, I didn’t mean to be harsh.  If I were your mother, I should know how to make you see, but I’m only an old bumble-daddy.”