He kissed her, and laughed. "I think I'm rather a clever fellow," he said. "I've had to work it out all by myself, and I've worked it out right. You see, I know you, my Cara. I don't know him yet, though. So it wasn't easy."
She pressed closer to him. "It's lovely to feel one is so much trusted," she said. "But you were right to trust me, darling. No, I know it couldn't have been easy. I've had to do some thinking myself, so as to see how you'd take it. I knew you'd be dear and kind, but I couldn't expect you to see Maurice as I see him, now that I love him. He thinks, you know, that I'm much above him. I'm not, in anything that matters. But in all the things that the world looks at—. That's what we're up against, isn't it, Dad?"
"We'll be up against it together, darling, and if I'm with you the others won't matter much. But it's true, you know, that I don't see him as you do, yet. You've got to help me."
"I know. Well, darling, you've seen I have changed since we came to live here. When we had that ride, to breakfast with Mollie, we talked about it. You thought I was cutting myself off from something that was worth having. I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't, and I enquired into myself afterwards."
"What did you discover? It's very important. You will cut yourself off."
"I discovered that I really didn't want any of it; not to make it matter. My happiness is in the quietest things I do, not in the other things. Even our big beautiful house, and the garden, and the way we live—that counted for a lot when we first came to live in the country. But it's not what counts most now. It's the country itself—nature, I suppose. I'm at home with it. There's something in me that responds. Well, Maurice is like that too; even more than I am, because his life has been simpler than mine. He is really big, Dad; big and simple and direct. There's been nothing to complicate his purpose. I've felt it about him all along. Now I love him, I know what it is that has brought me to him. I can look up to him, and I do."
They went up together to Maurice's room. He was on the sofa, propped up now against cushions, and soon to be ready to be wheeled about.
"Well, my boy!" said Grafton, as he shook hands with him.
"Dad is on our side, Maurice," said Caroline.