At length Louise conquered her tears and turned a fire-illumined smile upon Blythe.
"I am glad," she said simply. "Even before you told me, this had been the happiest day of my life. Now it is beautiful. I cannot even begin to tell you how beautiful it is."
"Then I shall apply for the guardianship, Louise," said Blythe. "I wish I could say how it pleases me to know you are willing that I should."
"Willing?" said Louise. "Do you know that, aside from Laura, you are the only—" She had been close to saying "friend;" but she could not leave her mother out in that way;—"the only adviser I have?"
Blythe, glancing from the logs into her eyes as she said that, longed to take her in his arms.
Laura, at the piano in the music room on the other side of the hall, began softly to play the barcarole from "The Tales of Hoffmann." They listened for a little while, and then Blythe said, smiling gravely:
"As your father says, I shall not be, I hope, an exacting guardian. There are many things upon which I shall not touch at all. I shall not affect to believe that you do not know what I mean."
"I know," said Louise.
"Your duty is that to which your heart prompts you—I know that," said Blythe. "It is not for me, nor for anyone else, to seek to alter your conception of your duty. All that I ask is that you call upon me in your time of need, if that time should ever come; and I hope it never shall. For the rest, nothing is to be changed at my suggestion. The scroll is in your hands, Louise. Only when you need me—I shall not fail you then."
"Would it be unworthy," she asked him after a pause, "if I were not to tell my father—just yet—that I am living with my mother?"