He was miserable. He would have given at least half Chickover to be able to spare her.
‘Remarrying isn’t one of them,’ she said; and for the first time he caught a glimpse of another Virginia, a Virginia who perhaps, ten years ahead, might argue.
He raised his head from her bosom and looked at her again.
‘I know what I am talking about, my child,’ he said. ‘This remarrying is. She is marrying the young man with whom she motored up to London. You saw him yourself. Perhaps you will now agree that there are some things one does not willingly tell one’s daughter.’
Virginia stared at him a moment, her eyes very wide open. Then, without speaking a word, she got up off his knee and walked over to a window and stood at it with her back to him.
How strange of her, he thought. What a strange way of meeting trouble—to go away from him like that, to turn from the love that longed to help her.
He didn’t know what to do or say next. He sat watching her in the utmost perplexity. His Virginia, getting up off his knee, withdrawing herself from his loving arms——
‘Yes,’ she said after a long silence. ‘I can imagine there may be such things. But I don’t think’—she turned and faced him—‘this is one of them.’
He got on to his feet and went towards her, his arms outstretched.
‘My darling, my wounded darling,’ he cried, all understanding and pitifulness, ‘you are generous and young——’