He was so happy with this manifestation of her, which of all her moods he loved the best, that the discomfort he had felt about her was assuaged. He did not even want to ask her questions. A confiding active child, behaving with the sexlessness of a small boy, she was so far removed from all the absorptions of love-making that it would have seemed almost unnatural to bring them to her mind.
They strolled home very slowly, she carrying for him all he would allow her to carry and clinging to him closely, even making him put his arm round her shoulder, as she had done when she was little, so that she might put her arm around his waist.
"It's lovely being with you, my old Daddywad," she said. Then she sang a little song which a nurse had taught her, and with the mistakes she had made in her babyhood, and with the nurse's intonation:
"I love Daddy,
My dear Daddy,
And I know vat 'e loves me;
'E's my blaymate,
Raim or shine,
Vere's not annover Daddy in er worl' like mine."
She laughed softly, and gave his substantial waist a squeeze. "You do like having me here, don't you, Daddy darling? You do miss me while I'm away?"
"Of course I do," he said. "I should like you to be here always. But you enjoy yourself in London, don't you?"
"Not half as much as I'm enjoying myself now," she said. It was just what Caroline had said. There was nobody either of them liked to be with so much as him. "When it's all over in July we'll stay here for a bit, won't we, Dad? Don't let's go abroad this year. I like this much better."
"I don't want to go abroad," he said. "I expect somebody will want to take you to Cowes though."
"I don't want to miss Cowes. I mean after that. We'll be quiet here and ask very few people, till it's time to go up to Scotland."
"Oh, you're going to Scotland, are you?"