'Pardon me, papa, I love no man sufficiently to make me leave your roof for his.'
'What stuff and nonsense is this, Clare Collingwood!'
'It is neither, but truth, papa.'
'Though you have the bad taste to inform me that I am getting old, permit me to remind you that in many things you, Clare, are a mere child, though a woman in years.'
'A child, perhaps, compared with such women as Desmond's sister Evelyn,' replied Clare, with some annoyance.
'And as a woman in years, I, foreseeing the time when I could not have you always to reign over my table at Carnaby Court or in Piccadilly, have deemed it necessary to provide myself with a—a——'
'Papa!'
'Well, a substitute,' he added, giving a finishing adjust to his gloves, and then looking Clare steadily in the face.
'In the person of Evelyn Desmond!' she exclaimed, in a breathless voice, and becoming very pale.
'Precisely, my dear Miss Collingwood. She has promised to fill up in my heart all the fearful void left there by the loss of your good mother. I meant to have told you this long ago, but—but it was an awkward subject to approach.'