“Yes, yes; certainly, my dear,” he said; and he took her upon his arm down the great staircase.
All the way home in the carriage she lay back silent and with her eyes closed.
“Are you tired, dear?” he asked. “You are not ill?” and he looked anxious.
“Not ill, dear, only tired,” she said, smiling at him lovingly. “I—I think I should like to leave Paris for a time.”
“We’ll go to-morrow,” he assented at once. “Er—that is, I’ll write and ask——”
He stopped.
“Lord Clydesfold!” she finished; and there was something like bitterness in her voice. “Can we not go without troubling him, dear? He——” She paused for a second. “Why should he care where or when we go?”
“He is all that is good and true and generous!” he said, gently.
“Yes, I know,” she assented, wearily, or with an affectation of weariness. “I know there is no one in the world to compare with him; but I think we have troubled him enough.”
He looked at her with a puzzled stare; fathers seldom understand their daughters’ heart-moods.