“Yes, that’s about how it is with us.”
Loughlin was amazed at the girl’s divination. It seemed miraculous, what a subtle mind she had, extraordinary! And how casually she took the old rascal’s—well, what could you call it?—effrontery, shame, misdemeanour, helplessness. But was not her mother like it too? He had grasped nothing at all of the situation yet, save that Nathaniel Crabbe appeared to be netted in the toils of this housekeeper, this Lizzie from Brighton. Dear Orianda was “dished” now, poor girl. She could not conceivably return to such a menage.
Orianda was saying: “Then I may stay, father, mayn’t I, for good with you?”
Her father’s eyes left no doubt of his pleasure.
“Can we give Gerald a bedroom for a few days? Or do we ask Lizzie?”
“Ah, better ask her,” said the shameless man. “You want to make a stay here, sir?”
“If it won’t incommode you,” replied Loughlin.
“O, make no doubt about that, to be sure no, I make no doubt about that.”
“Have you still got my old bedroom?” asked Orianda, for the amount of dubiety in his air was in prodigious antagonism to his expressed confidence.
“Why yes, it may happen,” he replied slowly.