This was exactly like Paula, of course.  She was the vortex of the whole tempest, but when she had thoroughly exhausted the emotional possibilities of it she sank into peaceful slumber like a baby after a hard cry.

No wonder she was too much for these two Wollastons who sat now with dry throats and tremulous hands over the mockery of breakfast!  Mary, although she knew, asked her father whether he wanted his coffee clear or with cream in it and having thus broken the spell, went on with a gasp: 

“I’m glad Paula isn’t coming down.  It gives you a better chance to tell me just how you feel about my having interfered.  I did run away last night.  You guessed that, I suppose.  But it wasn’t to evade it altogether.  My—­whipping, you know.”

It had an odd effect on both of them, this reference to her childhood; her hand moved round the table rim and covered his which rested on the edge of it.

“Did your mother ever punish you?” he asked.  “Corporeally?  It’s my recollection that she did not.  I was always the executioner.  I doubt now if that was quite fair.”

“Perhaps not,” she asserted dubiously.  “In general it isn’t fair of course.  It probably wasn’t in the case of Rush.  But with me,—­I don’t think I could have borne it to have mother beat me.  It would have seemed an insufferable affront.  I’d have hated her for it.  But there was a sort of satisfaction in having you do it.”

After another moment of silence she smiled and added, “I suppose a Freudian would carry off an admission like that to his cave and gnaw over it for hours.”

He stared at her, shocked, incredulous.  “What do you know about Freud?” he demanded.

“One couldn’t live for two years within a hundred yards of Washington Square without knowing at least as much about it as that,” she told him,—­and was glad of the entrance of the maid with another installment of the breakfast.  There was no more talk between them during the meal.  But at the end of it she faced him resolutely.

“We must have this out, dad.  And isn’t now as good a time as any?”

He followed her out into the veranda but the sounds from the dining-room, where the maid had come in to clear away the breakfast, disturbed him so Mary suggested a walk.

“Get your hat and we’ll go over to the lake.  I know a nice place not far, an open field right at the edge of the bluff with one big tree to make it shady.  At this hour of the morning we are sure to have it all to ourselves.”

He said as they walked along, “I’ve no reproaches for you.  Not this morning.  I’ve thought over a lot of ground since four o’clock.”

He said nothing more to the point until they reached the spot which Mary had selected as their destination—­it lived up handsomely to all her promises—­and settled themselves under the shade of the big tree.

“I suppose,” he added then, “that I ought to forgive Whitney and Hood.  Their intentions were the best and kindest, of course.  But I find that harder to do.”