In the meantime her father had spoken. Joe would have been more
reserved with men or with older women; but with this girl, so much the
sort of girl he had long dreamed about, his reserve vanished without
resistance, and in its place was a desire to talk to this beautiful
creature who came out of the world which the big white house
represented.
"I have a daughter, yes," he said. "But Larry--Mr. Brainard perhaps I
should say--has likely told you all there is to tell."
"I'd like to hear it from you, please--if you don't mind."
"There's really not much to tell," he said. "You know what I was and
what happened. When I went to prison my daughter was too young to
remember me--less than two years old. I didn't want her ever to be
drawn into the sort of life that had been mine, or be the sort of
woman that a girl becomes who gets into that life. And I didn't want
her ever to have the stigma, and the handicap, of her knowing and the
world knowing that her father was a convict. You can't understand it
fully, Miss Cameron, but perhaps you can understand a little how
disgraced you would feel, what a handicap it would be, if your father
were a convict. I had a good friend I could trust. So I turned my
daughter over to him, to be brought up with no knowledge of my
existence, and with every reasonable advantage that a nice girl should
have.
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