"Let me see him, mamma. Let me see him but once. If I might see him, perhaps I might do as you wish—about him. I cannot say anything more unless I may see him."
The Countess still stormed and still threatened, but she could not move her daughter. She also found that the child had inherited particles of the nature of her parents. But it was necessary that some arrangement should be made as to the future life, both of Lady Anna and of herself. She might bury herself where she would, in the most desolate corner of the earth, but she could not leave Lady Anna in Bedford Square. In a few months Lady Anna might choose any residence she pleased for herself, and there could be no doubt whose house she would share, if she were not still kept in subjection. The two parted then in deep grief,—the mother almost cursing her child in her anger, and Lady Anna overwhelmed with tears. "Will you not kiss me, mamma, before you go?"
"No, I will never kiss you again till you have shown me that you are my child."
But before she left the house, the Countess was closeted for a while with Mrs. Bluestone, and, in spite of all that she had said, it was agreed between them that it would be better to permit an interview between the girl and Daniel Thwaite. "Let him say what he will," argued Mrs. Bluestone, "she will not be more headstrong than she is now. You will still be able to take her away with you to some foreign country."
"But he will treat her as though he were her lover," said the Countess, unable to conceal the infinite disgust with which the idea overwhelmed her.
"What does it matter, Lady Lovel? We have got to get a promise from her, somehow. Since she was much with him, she has seen people of another sort, and she will feel the difference. It may be that she wants to ask him to release her. At any rate she speaks as though she might be released by what he would say to her. Unless she thought it might be so herself, she would not make a conditional promise. I would let them meet."
"But where?"
"In Keppel Street."
"In my presence?"
"No, not that; but you will, of course, be in the house,—so that she cannot leave it with him. Let her come to you. It will be an excuse for her doing so, and then she can remain. If she does not give the promise, take her abroad, and teach her to forget it by degrees." So it was arranged, and on that evening Mrs. Bluestone told Lady Anna that she was to be allowed to meet Daniel Thwaite.