The Reverberator by Henry James

Mr. Dosson, as we know, was, almost more than anything else, loosely contemplative, and the present occasion could only minister to that side of his nature, especially as, so far at least as his observation of his daughters went, it had not urged him into uncontrollable movement. But the truth is that the intensity, or rather the continuity, of his meditations did engender an act not perceived by these young ladies, though its consequences presently became definite enough. While he waited for the Proberts to arrive in a phalanx and noted that they failed to do so he had plenty of time to ask himself -- and also to ask Delia -- questions about Mr. Flack. So far as they were addressed to his daughter they were promptly answered, for Delia had been ready from the first, as we have seen, to pronounce upon the conduct of the young journalist. Her view of it was clearer every hour; there was a difference however in the course of action which she judged this view to demand.

At first he was to have been blown up sky-high for the mess he had got them into -- profitless as the process might be and vain the satisfaction; he was to have been scourged with the sharpest lashes the sense of violated confidence could inflict. At present he was not to be touched with a ten-foot pole, but rather cut dead, cast off and ignored, let alone to his dying day: Delia quickly caught at this for the right grand way of showing displeasure. Such was the manner in which she characterised it in her frequent conversations with her father, if that can be called conversation which consisted of his serenely smoking while she poured forth arguments that kept repetition abreast of variety.