"But it is not of myself that I want to speak, mignonne! I ceased, long ago, to look upon myself save as a helper, a soul with experience and tenderness behind it, to stretch out a hand and aid the unknowing, the struggling, the unlearned, the young. For myself—che sarà sarà! But for you, my Lily, what is it to be?"
"I—I don't know," said Lily, very lamely indeed.
Aunt Go looked more omniscient than ever, as she gazed at her niece.
"So undeveloped a little soul, is it?" she mused tolerantly. "Love would do much for you, little one—perhaps all."
"But I don't feel sure that—that I'm at all in love," Lily faltered foolishly.
Inwardly she was asking herself with bewilderment why it was that she could not speak sincerely about this thing to Aunt Clotilde. Perhaps it was because it was impossible not to feel that Aunt Clotilde was a good deal more interested in her own analytical dissection of the situation than in the people primarily concerned.
At all events, Lily found Miss Stellenthorpe of small assistance to her, and she had been too thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of distrust of her own instincts to consider the possibility of solving her own problems without extraneous advice. She did not want to consult Philip, because he was her father, and she took it for granted that he would therefore take her decision upon himself, with a strong bias in favour of any course least advocated by herself. Theoretically, Lily had been taught that parents sacrificed everything for their children. Practical experience of Philip's and of Eleanor's anxious, tender tyranny and immutable conviction of their own omnipotence no less than omniscience, in all matters concerning their offspring, had quite unconsciously led her to the opposite conclusion.
She thought timidly of consulting her old schoolmistress, Miss Melody. Had not Miss Melody put herself and all her experience at Lily's disposal, and had she not declared that girls who had been once under her charge at school still turned to her for help and counsel that she gladly and proudly gave?
With this species of mental reservation to strengthen her, Lily left Genazzano without making any definite confidence to Aunt Clo.
"I don't really feel as if I knew my own mind, just now," she said apologetically, and not altogether untruly.