protest, by turns incoherent, testy, and plaintive. “Come to stay—stay a long time! But, this is folly! We’ve no women here, child, except the servants. David wants no women about him. I don’t want any women about me! There’s not been a petticoat in this room since you were last here yourself. And that, that’s ten years ago. You will be very uncomfortable. You have no kind of an idea of what sort of existence you are proposing to yourself. I am a mass of selfishness. I should make your life a burden to you. Be reasonable, my dear! I am a very old man. Pooh, pooh, I won’t allow it! You must go elsewhere. Hey, what?” “I cannot go elsewhere, I have no money.” 15“No money! But Marvel! But the fortune I gave you? Tut, tut, what folly is this now?” 15 “Gone, gone—and more! He would have died in the Fleet had we not escaped abroad. The guineas I have now in my purse are the last I own in the world. All my other worldly goods are in the couple of trunks now in the passage.” She stopped, and remained awhile silent, then in a lower voice and slowly: “Look at me, father,” she added, “can I live alone?” He looked as he was bidden. He, the man who had not always been a recluse, the whilom man of the world who in older years had taken study as a hobby, the man of bygone pleasures, appraised her ripe woman’s beauty with rapid discrimination. Then into the father’s eyes there sprang a gleam of something like pride—pride of such a daughter—a light of remembrance, a struggling tenderness. The next moment the worn lids fell and the old man stood ashamed: “I beg your pardon, my dear,” he said, gravely, and sank into his chair. She came round and looked down at him a moment smiling. “You never heard me walk all about the room,” she said, “I have a light tread. And I’ll always wear stuff dresses here.” Then, more coaxingly: “I don’t think you’ll find me much in the way, father. I’ve got good eyes, I am remarkably intelligent”—she paused a second and, thrusting out her hands under his brooding gaze, added with a soft laugh: “And you know I’ve steady hands!” He stared at the pretty white things. Faintly he murmured: “But I’m a mass of selfishness!” “Then I’ll be the more useful to you!” she cried gaily and laid first her cool,
Prev.
Back
Top