"Well, suppose we were agreed about everything—the discretion and all—what would you begin by doing?"
"I shouldn't begin by doing anything. I should try to win your daughter's confidence; and if I couldn't do that I should go away."
"So that in the end it might happen that nothing would be accomplished."
"It might happen so. I shouldn't expect it. Good hearts are generally sensitive to good influences; and beneath her shell of manner Miss Pruyn strikes me as neither more nor less than a dear little girl."
Again he was suspicious of a bid for favor; but again Diane's air of almost haughty honesty negatived the thought.
"I'm glad you see that," was the only comment he made. "But," he added, once more taking a step or two toward her, "when you had won her confidence, then you would do things that I suggested, wouldn't you?"
"I shouldn't have to. She would probably do them herself, and a great deal better than you or I."
"I don't see how you can be sure of that. If you don't make her—"
"When you've watered your plant and kept it in the sunshine you don't have to make it bloom. It will do that of itself."
"But all these young men?—and this young Wappinger—?"