"I have never seen either Germany or Switzerland before.
I have scarcely been out of England before."
"Why now"--he paused, to think briefly upon his words--"Itook it for granted you were showing Miss Madden around.""It 's quite the other way about," she answered, with a cold little laugh. "It is she who is showing me around.
It is her tour. I am the chaperone." Thorpe dwelt upon the word in his mind. He understood what it meant only in a way, but he was luminously clear as to the bitterness of the tone in which it had been uttered.
"No--it didn't seem as if it were altogether--what Imight call--YOUR tour," he ventured. They had seen much of each other these past few days, but it was still hard for him to make sure whether their freedom of intercourse had been enlarged.
The slight shrug of the shoulders with which, in silence, she commented upon his remark, embarrassed him. For a moment he said nothing. He went on then with a renewed consciousness of risk.
"You mustn't be annoyed with me," he urged. "I've been travelling with that dear little niece of mine and her brother, so long, that I've got into a habit of watching to notice if the faces I see round me are happy. And when they're not, then I have a kind of fatherly notion of interfering, and seeing what's wrong."She smiled faintly at this, but when he added, upon doubtful inspiration--"By the way, speaking of fathers, I didn't know at Hadlow that you were the daughter of one of my Directors"--this smile froze upon the instant.
"The Dent du Midi is more impressive from the hotel, don't you think?" she remarked, "than it is from here."Upon consideration, he resolved to go forward.
"I have taken a great interest in General Kervick,"he said, almost defiantly. "I am seeing to it that he has a comfortable income--an income suitable to a gentleman of his position--for the rest of his life.""He will be very glad of it," she remarked.
"But I hoped that you would be glad of it too,"he told her, bluntly. A curious sense of reliance upon his superiority in years had come to him. If he could make his air elderly and paternal enough, it seemed likely that she would defer to it. "I'm talking to you as I would to my niece, you know," he added, plausibly.
She turned her head to make a fleeting survey of his face, as if the point of view took her by surprise.
"I don't understand," she said. "You are providing an income for my father, because you wish to speak to me like an uncle. Is that it?"He laughed, somewhat disconsolately. "No--that isn't it,"he said, and laughed again. "I couldn't tell, you know, that you wouldn't want to talk about your father.""Why, there's no reason in the world for not talking of him,"she made haste to declare. "And if he's got something good in the City, I'm sure I'm as glad as anyone. He is the sort that ought always to have a good deal of money.
I mean, it will bring out his more amiable qualities.
He does not shine much in adversity--any more than I do."Thorpe felt keenly that there were fine things to be said here--but he had confidence in nothing that came to his tongue. "I've been a poor man all my life--till now,"was his eventual remark.
"Please don't tell me that you have been very happy in your poverty," she adjured him, with the dim flicker of a returning smile. "Very likely there are people who are so constituted, but they are not my kind.
I don't want to hear them tell about it. To me poverty is the horror--the unmentionable horror!""There never was a day that I didn't feel THAT!"Thorpe put fervour into his voice. "I was never reconciled to it for a minute. I never ceased swearing to myself that I'd pull myself out of it. And that's what makes me sort of soft-hearted now toward those--toward those who haven't pulled themselves out of it.""Your niece says you are soft-hearted beyond example,"remarked Lady Cressage.
"Who could help being, to such a sweet little girl as she is?"demanded the uncle, fondly.
"She is very nice," said the other. "If one may say such a thing, I fancy these three months with her have had an appreciable effect upon you. I'm sure I note a difference.""That's just what I've been saying to myself!" he told her.
He was visibly delighted with this corroboration.
"I've been alone practically all my life. I had no friends to speak of--I had no fit company--I hadn't anything but the determination to climb out of the hole.
Well, I've done that--and I've got among the kind of people that I naturally like. But then there came the question of whether they would like me. I tell you frankly, that was what was worrying the heart out of me when Ifirst met you. I like to be confessing it to you now--but you frightened me within an inch of my life. Well now, you see, I'm not scared of you at all. And of course it's because Julia's been putting me through a course of sprouts."The figure was lost upon Lady Cressage, but the spirit of the remarks seemed not unpleasant to her. "I'm sure you're full of kindness," she said. "You must forget that Isnapped at you--about papa." "All I remember about that is,"he began, his eye lighting up with the thought that this time the opportunity should not pass unimproved, "that you said he didn't shine much in adversity---any more than you did.
Now on that last point I disagree with you, straight.
There wouldn't be any place in which you wouldn't shine.""Is that the way one talks to one's niece?" she asked him, almost listlessly. "Such flattery must surely be bad for the young." Her words were sprightly enough, but her face had clouded over. She had no heart for the banter.
"Ah"--he half-groaned. "I only wish I knew what was the right way to talk to you. The real thing is that Isee you're unhappy--and that gets on my nerve--and Ishould like to ask you if there wasn't something I could do--and ask it in such a way that you'd have to admit there was--and I don't know enough to do it."He had a wan smile for thanks. "But of course there is nothing," she replied, gently.
