“Why?” she cried.
The question was very, very difficult for him, so difficult that for a moment he could find no answer. At last he said slowly, “I don’t believe Hugh is the man to make you happy.”
“Don’t you think I am the best judge of that?” Helen said gently—quickly.
His answer was quicker: “No.”
The girl lost something of her self-control then, and there was a pitiful note in the young voice saying: “Daddy, this isn’t all a silly joke? You aren’t trying to tease me?”
“I’m not joking, Helen.” There were tears in his voice.
“Then,” she cried, “why have you suddenly changed towards Hugh? Our house has always been his home—all these years. I can only just remember when he came: I can’t remember when he was not here. You have purposely thrown us together.” There was accusation in her tone, but no anger.
She had pricked him, and he answered sharply: “I never said that it was my wish that you should marry him.”
“Not in words—no—but in a hundred other ways. Why have you changed? Why?”
“I don’t want to answer that question.”