"You mean he'll be driven anyway?"
It was so far from what I meant that I could only stare at her and
at her frightful failure to perceive.
I went at it again, as I thought, with a directness that left
nothing to her intelligence. I told her what I meant was that he
couldn't do them both.
But she didn't see it. She just looked at me with her terrible
innocence.
"You mean it's too much for him?"
And I tried to begin again with no, it wasn't exactly that--but she
went on over me.
It wouldn't be too much for him if he didn't go at it so hard. He
was giving himself more to do than was necessary. He'd marked so
many things for omission; and, of course, the more he left out of
"Papa," the more he had to put in of his own.
"And he needn't," she said. "There's such a lot of Papa."
I knew. I scowled miserably at that. How was I going to tell her it
was the whole trouble, that there was "such a lot of Papa"?
I said there was; but, on the other hand, he needed such a lot of
editing.
She said that was just what they had to think about. _Did_ he?
I remembered Burton's theory, and I put it to her point-blank. Had
she read all of him?
She flushed slightly. No, she said, not all. But Mamma had.
"Then" (I skirmished), "you don't really know?"