“Eh? Well, to be frank, ma’am, no: I don’t.”
“Because he likes your little protégée?”
“I’m sorry to say, madam, that she is not my protégée. Poor child!”
“Hadn’t we better be frank, Sir Gordon? Suppose Philip Eaton wanted to marry her—what then?”
“Confound him! I should like to hand him over to the blacks!”
“What if she loved him?”
“If she loved him—if she loved him, Mrs Otway?” said the old man dreamily. “Why, then—dear me! This love’s one of the greatest miseries of life. But, there, ma’am, I have no influence at all. You must go to her father, not come to me.”