She said as if inspired and with that calmness which despair often gives: “There is no money to go away with, papa.”
He rose up straightening himself as though he were a hinged figure. She said decisively:
“And of course you wouldn’t think of deserting me, papa?”
“Of course not,” sounded his subdued tone. And he left her, gliding away with his walk which Mr. Powell described to me as being as level and wary as his voice. He walked as if he were carrying a glass full of water on his head.
Flora naturally said nothing to Anthony of that edifying conversation. His generosity might have taken alarm at it and she did not want to be left behind to manage her father alone. And moreover she was too honest. She would be honest at whatever cost. She would not be the first to speak. Never. And the thought came into her head: “I am indeed an unfortunate creature!”
It was by the merest coincidence that Anthony coming for the afternoon two days later had a talk with Mr. Smith in the orchard. Flora for some reason or other had left them for a moment; and Anthony took that opportunity to be frank with Mr. Smith. He said: “It seems to me, sir, that you think Flora has not done very well for herself. Well, as to that I can’t say anything. All I want you to know is that I have tried to do the right thing.” And then he explained that he had willed everything he was possessed of to her. “She didn’t tell you, I suppose?”
Mr. Smith shook his head slightly. And Anthony, trying to be friendly, was just saying that he proposed to keep the ship away from home for at least two years. “I think, sir, that from every point of view it would be best,” when Flora came back and the conversation, cut short in that direction, languished and died. Later in the evening, after Anthony had been gone for hours, on the point of separating for the night, Mr. Smith remarked suddenly to his daughter after a long period of brooding:
“A will is nothing. One tears it up. One makes another.” Then after reflecting for a minute he added unemotionally:
“One tells lies about it.”
Flora, patient, steeled against every hurt and every disgust to the point of wondering at herself, said: “You push your dislike of—of—Roderick too far, papa. You have no regard for me. You hurt me.”