“Doris,” he said, gravely, and with visible emotion, “there is something I must tell you. I ought to have told you before this; but I put it off. I would put it off now—” his lips quivered—“for I hate the thought of it. But to-night my conscience has been roused. That man—” he stopped, and his teeth clicked. “Doris!” he exclaimed, with a catch in his breath. “Tell me, have I not been as a father to you? Could any father have striven more hardly for his daughter’s good? Could any father have loved you better, and lived for you more solely and entirely than I have done?”
“No, Jeffrey, none!” she said, in a low voice, and laying her soft, white hand upon his rugged and gnarled one soothingly.
“I call Heaven to witness that I have only had one thought, your welfare. When you lay, a little child, in my arms, I devoted my life to you. Every hour of the day I have thought of you, and planned out your future. It was not my own happiness I sought, not my own ambition, but yours—yours! I have lived and striven for one end—your success, and your happiness! And I have won! You are a great actress, Doris, and it is I—I!—who have taught and trained and made you what you are!”
“Yes, Jeffrey,” she murmured, “I know it! and I am grateful—grateful!”
“But are you happy? Are you happy, child?” he demanded, and his voice sounded almost stern in its intensity.
The color came and went in her face.
“How could I be otherwise, Jeffrey?” she said. “Yes, I am happy!”
He drew a long breath, as of relief, but went on—
“Compare your lot with others. I don’t mean the poor and commonplace; but those others, the rich, the well-born, the titled. Would you have been happier, for instance, if you had been—let me say—the daughter of a nobleman——”
She smiled at the question, earnestly as it was put.