But for once the enthralling topic of the hay did not serve to turn his attention.
“You’ve been crying!” he observed, looking up at her. “Did any one dare—was anybody rude to you in Witham?”
She slid down on her knees by the sill, and laid her chin on her arms.
“Not rude, dad. Not exactly what you might call rude. Some of them weren’t precisely on the same planet—that was all! And others came too near, which was worse; good little Verity, for instance, and dear, blundering Larrupper.”
“Lionel, do you mean?” he asked quickly. “Then the Lyndesays stood by you? The Lyndesays sought you out?”
“Oh, dear, yes!” She laughed rather shakily. “The difficulty was to get away from them! I had to dive into a cheese-shop to escape Christian, and Larry wanted to bring me home in the car.”
“Then the rest don’t count!” the old man answered, unconsciously echoing Christian’s words of that morning. That had been his attitude all through life. God made the Lyndesays, and the rest—didn’t count. His face cleared, and his eyes went back more restfully to the window.
“I wish I hadn’t gone!” Deb said brokenly. “I thought I was brave enough, but I found I wasn’t, after all. I’ve always been able to rely upon myself before, but to-day I went all to pieces. I wish I hadn’t gone. They all think I should have left the district, I know. They think it would have shown nice feeling and good taste! But I’ll not go—they shan’t make me. I’d hear the very ’bus-boy jeering as he drove me to the station; and I’d come back and fight the lot of them! They shan’t hound me away from you and the old place, shall they, dad?”
He laid his hand for a moment on her hair, but he did not turn his eyes from the window.
“The Lyndesays stood by you,” he said again, as if no other argument were needed; and again he added—“the rest do not count.”