Mr. Vane turned upon his daughter with almost tragic indignation.
“Eleanor,” he said, “do you know me so little that you dare to insult me by such a proposition as this? No; if I were starving I would not take this money. Am I so lost and degraded that even the child I love turns upon me in my old age?”
The hand which held the bank notes trembled with passionate emotion as the old man spoke.
“Papa, darling,” Eleanor pleaded, “indeed, indeed, I did not mean to wound you.”
“Let me hear no more of this, then, Eleanor; let me hear no more of it,” answered Mr. Vane, drawing himself up with a dignity that would have become a classic toga, rather than the old man’s fashionable overcoat. “I am not angry with you, my darling; I was only hurt, I was only hurt. My children have never known me, Eleanor; they have never known me. Come, my dear.”
Mr. Vane put aside his tragic air, and plunged into the Rue St. Honoré, where he called for a packet of gloves that had been cleaned for him. He put the gloves in his pocket, and then strolled back into the Rue Castiglione, looking at the vehicles in the roadway as he went. He was waiting to select the most elegantly appointed of the hackney equipages crawling slowly past.
“It’s a pity the government insist on putting a painted badge upon them,” he said, thoughtfully. “When I last called on Madame Marly, Charles the Tenth was at the Tuileries, and I had my travelling chariot and pair at Meurice’s, besides a britska for Mrs. Vane.”
He had pitched upon a very new and shining vehicle, with a smart coachman, by this time, and he made that half hissing, half whistling noise peculiar to Parisians when they call a hackney carriage.
Eleanor sprang lightly into the vehicle, and spread her flowing muslin skirts upon the cushions as she seated herself. The passers-by looked admiringly at the smiling young Anglaise with her white bonnet and nimbus of glittering hair.
“Au Bois, cocher,” Mr. Vane cried, as he took his place by his daughter.