"Yes, Dad, quite sure," she said softly, her arm still in his.
"Well, I knew you must be. I came to see that. Whatever I thought about it myself, it was for you to decide, and you weren't likely to have made a mistake, or to have gone into it lightly. I trust you absolutely, darling. I trust you in some things more than I do myself. If it's what you want, you must be right to want it. You'll have no trouble with me."
She broke down and cried on his shoulder. The strain on her had been greater than she had known, and its entire removal unbalanced her for the moment. Her tears did not last long. "You've made me so happy," she said. "I don't know why I'm crying. I ought to be laughing."
"Dearest child!" he said tenderly. "You've been fearing that I should make a fuss, eh? Well, there's going to be a bit of a fuss, you know, Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary, and all the rest of them. They won't understand it all."
"Do you understand it all, Dad?" she asked. "Is that why you're so sweet about it?"
"Perhaps I don't understand it all," he said, "though I've taken a lot of trouble about it. You won't expect me to shirk the difficulties. You'll have to answer up, won't you? They won't like it, and they'll say so. It will be for your sake they'll make objections, and think they are right in doing it. You'll have to remember that. But they're not—either of them—what you might call worldly, at heart. If you're right you'll be able to make them see it."
"I shan't mind anything if you're on my side, darling Dad. I hoped you would be when I had seen you, but I didn't think you'd bring me such comfort as you have, just at first. It makes me love you more than ever, because you understand the best things in me."
There was a pause before he said: "Tell me about it, darling. We needn't talk about what the world will see, and criticise. You must have faced that. And—"
"Perhaps it would be better," she said, "if I tell you how I have faced it, so as to get it out of the way, between you and me, Dad. We have talked about marriage together, and I know what your views are. Mine were much the same, before I knew I loved Maurice. I suppose that was why I didn't know that I did love him. Until it came to me, I shouldn't have thought of marrying anybody that Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary wouldn't think it suitable that I should marry—somebody with an established position, who had lived in the world that they belong to. I think even if I had found myself to have fallen in love—"
She hesitated. "Ah, that's the important thing," he said, and she knew that he understood her, and went on, with a pressure on the arm she was holding. "Yes, even if I had fallen in love—unless there was something deeper—I shouldn't have thought it right, and should have tried to get over it."