"Yes, but I don't think you ought to say it," pouted Boodles.
"We are ordinary people. I am not quite what the Bellamies would call a gentleman. My father was only a piano-maker," old Weevil faltered, hoping that the girl would think of her unknown parents when she heard him refer to his. "I went to a grammar-school, then became a bank-clerk until I was shelved, partly on account of my grey hairs, but chiefly because I hit the cashier on the head with a ruler for kicking a dog. I could not go into Mr. Bellamie's house, Boodles. It is too good for both of us. There is nothing to be ashamed of in my name, but it is not a genteel one. We are only unimportant beetles, and the Bellamies are big bugs," he said, laughing in spite of his feelings at his joke because it was so seldom that he made one.
"Aubrey knows all about it. He doesn't care," declared Boodles, nodding cheerfully. "Besides, I'm not really your daughter anyhow."
Weevil gasped at her innocent impertinence. Here he was trying to make her understand that she was a nameless little lady who could not possibly marry any one of gentle birth, and she was calmly suggesting she might be superior to him. It was only a thoughtless remark, but it served to show him that nothing but plain speaking would serve with a girl in love. She looked at everything through Aubrey's eyes; and Aubrey was only a boy who could hardly know his own mind. A boy does not care whether his sweetheart's father is a tinker or a rake; but a man, and an only son, who has reached an age when he can understand what his family and society and his profession demand of him, cares a great deal. There comes a time for every young person when he or she must leave fairyland and go into the world; and the pity of it is they cannot return. They look back, but the gate is shut. It is a gate which opens only one way—to exclude. For every child is born inside. They grow up, and see their children in that pleasant land, and wish they could join them there; but if they could go back they would not be happy, for it would be to them no longer a place of romance and sunshine, but a place of shadow, and dead selves, and memories. It would not be spring, with primroses and bluebells in flower, but a Christmas Eve when the dead life and the dead companions haunt the house, and grim Mother Holle is plucking her geese and dropping the feathers down the chimney. Aubrey at twenty adored Boodles. Aubrey at thirty might worry his head about her parents and her birth-name. Boodles at thirty would be the same as she was then, loving, and wanting nothing else. Weevil was right in some of his theories. Every one must suffer from the Brute, except those who deserve it most. The innocent have to suffer for them. Boodles too was right. It is no use trying to solve queer puzzles.
"No, darling; you are not my daughter. I wish you were. I wish you were."
"You are too old, daddy-man—at least rather too old," said Boodles gently. "I should have been born when you were past fifty. Why, what's the matter? You are dreadful funny to-day, old man."
Weevil had jumped up nimbly, and running to the window poked his head out to gulp into his lungs a good mouthful of air. He ran back to the astonished little girl, took her by the shoulders, shook her severely, grinned at her; then he stumbled back into his chair and began to laugh furiously.
"Shall I tell you a story, Boodle-oodle, a beautiful story of a little girl who wasn't what she thought she was, though she didn't know who she was, and didn't care, and wouldn't think, and couldn't listen when people tried to tell her? Shall I tell you all that, darling?"
"Not now," gasped Boodles. "I must go and dress. And I shall laugh as much as I like—mean old thing! Telling me I mustn't laugh, and then shaking the house down. Dad, if you go on making explosions you'll bring up rain-clouds, and my afternoon will be spoilt, and so will my frock; and then I shall have to tell you a story of a horrid old man, who wasn't a bit like what he hoped his daughter thought he was, though he didn't know how horrid he was, and didn't care, and wouldn't listen when people tried to tell him. Well, I'll give you a kiss anyhow, though you are mad."
"Not daughter," cried the excited old man. "Remember you are not my daughter, Boodles."