Dunstan is discovered in his room

Dunstan’s father walked into the room without a word and went to stand by the window, as if Dunstan were not there at all.

Dunstan lay silently, pretending to read, as if his father were not.

His father said, “I should like to say that I had not believed that you would be hiding up here today, but apparently I did, since I came here looking for you.”

“I am not hiding!” Dunstan protested. “The door is wide open. And this is my room. Where else would I be?”

“In the hall with our guests.”

“Everyone was starting to go out to do other things, so I went out to do other things.”

“Our guests may come and go as they please,” his father snapped, “but we are their hosts, and we should be the last to leave the room.”

“You are their host. I don’t live here anymore. Remember?”

His father did not answer, so Dunstan loudly turned a page he had not read.

“Put down your book when you are speaking to me!”

“Turn around and look at me when you are speaking to me!” Dunstan retorted.

His father spun around and glared at him. “Are you certain that is what you want?”

Dunstan could not meet his eyes, so he busied himself putting his book away.

“I know that it is a great trial to spend time with your family on Christmas,” his father said, “but I did not think we were so unbearable that you had to come sulk in your room at the first opportunity.”

“That is not why,” Dunstan muttered.

“Why? Because Brit is here? You will be relieved to know that she just left to visit Iylaine’s baby, on which jaunt you ought to have accompanied her.”

“No, that is not why,” Dunstan growled.

“Why? Since you seem to be trying to tell me something. Why? Because of this girl?”

“This girl?” Dunstan shouted. “This girl? You can ask me that after what you did? But you will be relieved to know that that’s over, so you may congratulate yourself on a job well done!”

His father had appeared to regret the term “this girl” when Dunstan had first flung it back at him, but his face had hardened again meanwhile.

“What did I do?” he asked. “Because I sent you away to Dunellen to live?”

“Don’t play stupid with me. She told me.”

“Told you what?”

“You told her father about me!”

“Told whose father what?” his father cried. “I don’t know the girl’s father! I don’t even know who the girl is!”

“You don’t?”

“I told you I intended to let you handle your own affairs! I only know that she is not the Princess – more’s the pity – and beyond that, it is of no importance to me whatsoever. But you will forgive me for being relieved after all, if you say it’s over.”

Dunstan was disoriented by this revelation. He had spent the last two days subsisting on a seething disdain for his treacherous father. Without that to occupy his mind, he would be obliged to face other unpleasant facts, against which he could not lift a self-​​righteous indignation.

“I wish you had told me this before, Dunstan. If you have spent the last days or the last weeks hating me for something I did not do, it seems quite a shame. Especially since your presence here has meanwhile made everyone even more uncomfortable than your absence had theretofore.”

“I’m sorry,” Dunstan muttered.

“You would do better to apologize to Hetty and to our guests. And if you dare not, you may at least endeavor to make the remainder of the Christmas season more enjoyable. And – forgive me for feeling the need to remind you – I mean that especially in Brit’s regard. She is unhappy at home, and it is my fondest desire that she know that she can always come here to find a little happiness. But that depends largely on you, Dunstan. You owe her that.”

“Why do I owe her anything?” Dunstan cried without thinking, though he was too proud to retract the outburst afterwards. He could not bear the disappointment in his father’s eyes, and so he fanned his own anger until he had the strength to turn away to the window in disgust.

“You owe her that,” his father said, “because she will be your wife, and the mistress of your house, and the mother of your children. And I assure you, Dunstan, that if you wait until she is all of those things before you start being kind to her, you will never live long enough to repay her for that. Even with two or three years of a head start, you will never manage to repay her what you will owe her.”

Dunstan was thereby reminded of something that brought back all of the disdain for his father that he had temporarily lost.

“Even with my mother’s jewelry added into the balance?” he snarled.

“Oh, what now?” his father groaned. “You’re unhappy because I gave her one of your mother’s necklaces for Christmas?”

“She’s not my wife nor mistress here yet! My mother’s jewelry should go to Gwynn and Meg. Or to Hetty.”

“I did not give her your mother’s jewelry. I gave her one necklace that your mother used to wear, and it was neither a family piece nor one of her favorites that she wanted your sisters to have. But it gave me pleasure to give it to Brit, because she used to find it especially fascinating when she was a little thing and your mother held her. And I think it would have pleased your mother to know she has it.”

“Don’t speak for my mother,” Dunstan growled. “I do not think you know what she would have wanted. You certainly did not know what she did want.”

His father was silent for a moment, and Dunstan wondered what he would have read on his face if he had turned around – though he knew he would not have liked what he would have seen.

“I shall leave you, Dunstan,” his father finally said in a voice that was cold, but tight with repressed tears. “I am beginning to believe that whenever you don’t know what else to say to me, you wield my own love for your mother against me. There is only so much I will bear from you. You would not even exist if not for that love. It ought to be as sacred as God to you.”

“That doesn’t mean you are God, you know,” Dunstan muttered.

His father walked out of the room without a word.