The protest which Owen almost automatically registered within himself at this interpolated reference to the despair which he could not feel, was necessarily a silent one.
“Valeria has been the brightest, the most lighthearted, of all my children. She is naturally gifted with high spirits, and she and I have made innocent fun together, have shared the humourous view of life, a thousand times. Have I allowed that gaiety of hers to turn to flippancy—that mirthful spirit to cloak a lack of principle? I ask myself again and again wherein I have erred, for I cannot hold myself blameless, Owen. I have thought over my motherless children, I have prayed, and yet it has come to this—it has come to this!”
The Canon’s head dropped back into his hands once more, and Quentillian felt as though this despairing round of anger, self-blame, self-pity, and genuine misery, might go on forever.
He glanced at the clock. The dinner-gong having failed of its appeal, it appeared as though nothing need ever interrupt them again.
“I will give him five minutes more, and then I shall stand up,” Quentillian decided.
The Canon lifted a haggard face.
“Perhaps I had set my heart overmuch upon your marriage with my child, Owen. It may be so—it may be so. I may have forgotten that we poor mortals cannot, after all, see very far—that all plannings and schemings are very vain, seen by the light of Immortal Wisdom. If so, I am receiving my punishment now.”
The Canon groaned again.
“I am at a loss how to act. I can decide nothing. I must see Valeria, but how can I do so until I can command myself?”
Even as he asked the question, the veins stood out upon the Canon’s forehead, his nostrils quivered and his face became suffused.