She didn't reply. He looked at her, and asked: "What's the matter, darling? Aren't you pleased about it? She has got over that other business, hasn't she?"
"If you mean, does she love him any more, of course she doesn't. But I don't think she has got over it all the same. It has altered her."
She had drawn a chair close up to his and was leaning against it. He took her hand. "Darling child," he said, "you're too sensitive. You're feeling losing her. She hasn't talked to you enough about it. But she will, you know, when she has settled down."
"She has talked to you, hasn't she, Dad?"
"Yes, she's talked to me. Nobody could have been sweeter than she was. I'm very lucky in my daughters, Cara. Both of you—all three of you—know that you can come to me and tell me about these things that girls don't usually confide to their fathers. You've done it, and now B has done it. She didn't do it last time. That shows what a right marriage this is, and what a wrong one that would have been."
"She would have done it, last time, darling, if you hadn't stopped it."
His pressure on her hand that he was holding relaxed. "Surely—" he began, but she caught him up hurriedly: "Oh, I don't mean that you weren't right to stop it; but how has she talked to you about Dick—and her engagement to him?"
He smiled, and gave her hand a little squeeze. "Why, just in the way that would most please an affectionate parent," he said. "I like Dick immensely; I think he's a fine fellow, and there's a lot more in him than appears on the surface. But she spared me rhapsodies about him. She knew, I suppose, that I could take all that for granted, and should be soothed by being made to feel that I hadn't got to give up everything to him. She's my darling child still, and always will be. And, as I told you, I like Dick well enough to take him in. They'll both be to me what your dear mother and I were to her father. I don't think I could love B any more than I do now. But though I'm giving her up I shan't love her any less. And I shan't mind giving her up. I'm happier—for my own sake—about her than I was when I first had her news. She has what she wants to make her happy, and she has given me all I want to make me happy."
"I'm so glad, Dad," she said. "And though I suppose she'll be away a lot just at first, by and bye they will be living here, and you'll see as much of her as you want."