“The start is really only a matter of judicious advertising. There’s no difficulty. And here you go and . . . ”
He turned his face away. “After all I am still de Barral, the de Barral. Didn’t you remember that?”
“Papa,” said Flora; “listen. It’s you who must remember that there is no longer a de Barral . . . ” He looked at her sideways anxiously. “There is Mr. Smith, whom no harm, no trouble, no wicked lies of evil people can ever touch.”
“Mr. Smith,” he breathed out slowly. “Where does he belong to? There’s not even a Miss Smith.”
“There is your Flora.”
“My Flora! You went and . . . I can’t bear to think of it. It’s horrible.”
“Yes. It was horrible enough at times,” she said with feeling, because somehow, obscurely, what this man said appealed to her as if it were her own thought clothed in an enigmatic emotion. “I think with shame sometimes how I . . . No not yet. I shall not tell you. At least not now.”
The cab turned into the gateway of the dock. Flora handed the tall hat to her father. “Here, papa. And please be good. I suppose you love me. If you don’t, then I wonder who—”
He put the hat on, and stiffened hard in his corner, kept a sidelong glance on his girl. “Try to be nice for my sake. Think of the years I have been waiting for you. I do indeed want support—and peace. A little peace.”
She clasped his arm suddenly with both hands pressing with all her might as if to crush the resistance she felt in him. “I could not have peace if I did not have you with me. I won’t let you go. Not after all I went through. I won’t.” The nervous force of her grip frightened him a little. She laughed suddenly. “It’s absurd. It’s as if I were asking you for a sacrifice. What am I afraid of? Where could you go? I mean now, to-day, to-night? You can’t tell me. Have you thought of it? Well I have been thinking of it for the last year. Longer. I nearly went mad trying to find out. I believe I was mad for a time or else I should never have thought . . . ”