"I'm a little sorry for him, Dad. He's been awfully good about it. I do like him as a friend, you know, and it's difficult for him to keep that up, when he wants something more of me. But he writes me very nice letters, and I like writing to him too."
"That's rather dangerous, darling, if you're not going to give him what he wants."
"Is it, Daddy? Can't a man and a girl be friends—and nothing more?"
"He wants to be something more, doesn't he? You'd feel rather shocked and hurt, wouldn't you—if he wrote and told you he was going to marry somebody else."
She smiled. "I think I should feel rather relieved," she said.
"In that case," he said, after a moment's thought, "I don't suppose you ever will marry him. I've thought that, perhaps, you might after a time. I'm glad of it, darling. I've had enough lately. I want you all with me—here chiefly—for a bit longer. I don't want to think of the break-up yet awhile. We're going to enjoy Abington together, even more than we have done. It's going to be a great success now."
"I love it," she said. "I've always loved home, but this is more of a home than we have ever had. I love every day of my life here."
They talked a little longer of the pleasures they had had, and would have, in their country home, of the friends they had made in it, of the difference in outlook it had given to both of them. Caroline had seen her father alter slightly during the past year, grow simpler in his tastes, less dependent upon pleasures that had to be sought for, and, as she knew now that he had realised himself, still more welded to the life his children made for him. She saw something of what it would be to him to lose it, and if she had felt any waverings in that matter of a marriage that seemed to promise every known factor of happiness in marriage, except the initial propulsion of love on both sides, she now relinquished them. If love should come to her some day, and all the rest should follow, she knew that her love for her father would not grow less. But at present she wanted no one but him, and her sisters and brother, and her dear Dragon. She looked forward with intense happiness to the new year that was coming to them, in the life that was so pleasant to her, yielding all sorts of delights that she had only tasted of before, and making quiet and strong the spirit within her.
And he saw the change in her a little too, during that midnight hour, in which they sat and talked together before the fire. She had based herself upon this quiet country life in a way that went beyond anything either of them had expected from it. The daily round of duties and pleasures sufficed for her. Less than Beatrix, less probably than Barbara would be, was she dependent upon the distractions which had formed part of the woof and warf of the life in which she had been brought up. How far they were from the ultimate simplicities of life perhaps neither of them suspected, influenced and supported as they were by wealth and habit. But at the roots, at least of Caroline's nature, lay the quiet acceptance of love and duty as the best things that life could afford, and they had put forth more vigorous shoots in this kind settled country soil.
They sat on, watching the dying fire, talking sometimes, sometimes silent, loth to break up this hour of contentment and felt companionship, which held the seeds of so much more in the future. And there we must leave them for the present, looking forward.