"Ah!" she whispered, "I try not to think how much I want to go back there!"
"Would you thank any one who would take you?"
"As a governess, do you mean? But it would put papa to such expense if I were to leave him. And I think—I think there is something or some one that prevents his ever going back there at all."
"But if, for your sake, some one came forward and paid all your father's debts, and provided for him comfortably, and then sailed away with you in one of those nice white-funnelled steamers, and gave you a beautiful home in England, and surrounded you with everything that money and forethought could provide, and all for love of you, what would you say?"
"Why, who would do such a thing?"
"Some one who is very fond of you. Some one not very good, but who believes you could make him better by your sweet influence. Some one whose home is very lonely without a bright-faced Laline to look after things, and to sing about the house as I have heard you sing at the Rue Planché. Some one who loves you, Laline."
She stared into his face with wondering eyes which betrayed no self-consciousness.
"It sounds like a fairy-tale," she said.
"It is true, all the same. You are Cinderella, and I am a degenerate Fairy Prince, Laline!"