"Ah, it is as I thought, father! The work I love best, and can do best! Whose is the nativity? Not mine, I know; for I was born in the glad time when Venus ruled the year. Anael, her angel, held his wings over me against this very wry-faced, snow-chilled Saturn, whom I am so glad to see in the Seventh House, which is the House of Woe. Whose the nativity, I say?"
"Nay, child—pretty child, and wilful—you have a trick of getting my secrets from me. I sometimes think I am in thy hands no more than tawdry lace just washed and being wrung preparatory to hanging in the air from thy lattice. It is well for you to know there are some things out of your reach—for the time at least."
"That is saying you will tell me."
"Yes—some day."
"Then I will be patient."
Seeing him become thoughtful, and look abstractedly out of the window, she laid the diagram down, went back, and again put her arm around his neck.
"I did not come to interrupt you, father, but to learn two things, and run away."
"You begin like a rhetorician. What subdivisions lie under those two things? Speak!"
"Thank you," she replied, quickly. "First, Syama told me you were at some particular task, and I wanted to know if I could help you."
"Dear heart!" he said, tenderly.