“Eh?  What?” Father had turned and was looking at me so funny.  “Well, no, I should say not,” he said then.  “You aren’t sixteen yet.  And your mother—­I suspect she was too young.  If she hadn’t been quite so young—­”

He stopped, and stared again straight ahead at the dancers—­without seeing one of them, I knew.  Then he drew a great deep sigh that seemed to come from the very bottom of his boots.

“But it was my fault, my fault, every bit of it,” he muttered, still staring straight ahead.  “If I hadn’t been so thoughtless—­As if I could imprison that bright spirit of youth in a great dull cage of conventionality, and not expect it to bruise its wings by fluttering against the bars!”

I thought that was perfectly beautiful—­that sentence.  I said it right over to myself two or three times so I wouldn’t forget how to write it down here.  So I didn’t quite hear the next things that Father said.  But when I did notice, I found he was still talking—­and it was about Mother, and him, and their marriage, and their first days at the old house.  I knew it was that, even if he did mix it all up about the spirit of youth beating its wings against the bars.  And over and over again he kept repeating that it was his fault, it was his fault; and if he could only live it over again he’d do differently.

And right there and then it came to me that Mother said it was her fault, too; and that if only she could live it over again, she’d do differently.  And here was Father saying the same thing.  And all of a sudden I thought, well, why can’t they try it over again, if they both want to, and if each says it, was their—­no, his, no, hers—­well, his and her fault. (How does the thing go?  I hate grammar!) But I mean, if she says it’s her fault, and he says it’s his.  That’s what I thought, anyway.  And I determined right then and there to give them the chance to try again, if speaking would do it.

I looked up at Father.  He was still talking half under his breath, his eyes looking straight ahead.  He had forgotten all about me.  That was plain to be seen.  If I’d been a cup of coffee without any coffee in it, he’d have been stirring me.  I know he would.  He was like that.

“Father. Father!” I had to speak twice, before he heard me.  “Do you really mean that you would like to try again?” I asked.

“Eh?  What?” And just the way he turned and looked at me showed how many miles he’d been away from me.

“Try it again, you know—­what you said,” I reminded him.

“Oh, that!” Such a funny look came to his face, half ashamed, half vexed.  “I’m afraid I have been—­talking, my dear.”

“Yes, but would you?” I persisted.

He shook his head; then, with such an oh-that-it-could-be! smile, he said: 

“Of course;—­we all wish that we could go back and do it over again—­differently.  But we never can.”

“I know; like the cloth that’s been cut up into the dress,” I nodded.