She tormented herself with various derogatory speeches that she put into Philip's mouth.
"My little pet, you mustn't talk nonsense ... little people of your age don't have proposals from grown-up men, you know.... I shall tell this Mr. Aubray that I can't have him writing to you like this ... a hole-and-corner correspondence...."
No! Even one's father could never say that. Nicholas Aubray had been as punctilious as Philip himself, and had obtained Aunt Clo's sanction to the correspondence before embarking upon it.
Lily wondered whether Aunt Clo, first and last, had acted upon her own initiative, without any reference at all to Philip.
If so, he would still be in complete ignorance of the cataclysmic fact that Lily's whole destiny was shortly to be decided. She phrased it thus to herself in an unconscious attempt to safeguard the dignity of the situation, that she felt would be threatened by Philip's habitual treatment of her as a very young and irresponsible child.
Philip's first greeting of her dissolved the fear, and left her with a wondering sense of intense gratification. True to his life-long restrictions, nothing was put into words, but Lily was at no pains to account for the new pride and pleasure in her that was suddenly displayed by her father.
He openly praised her looks, and said once or twice that "Aunt Clo's accounts of her little companion" had given him great pleasure.
His least indirect reference to Lily's new standing as the desired of Nicholas Aubray was made a very few days after her return, as he bade her good-night one evening.
"Good-night, my child. God bless you and give you happiness. I only want you to be very happy, you know. One is young for such a very little while——"
He sighed, but Lily was reflecting, rather humorously, that never before had he hinted at any possible term to the youthfulness upon which he had so often insisted.