“Father is much to be pitied,” pursued Eve, in a low voice. “His life has been full of disappointments.”
“Ah, that is a saddening experience,” answered Vansittart, tenderly sympathetic.
His heart thrilled at the thought that she was beginning to confide in him, to treat him as a friend.
“His property in Yorkshire was so disappointing. I suppose land has gone down in value everywhere,” said Eve, rather vaguely; “but in father’s case it was dreadful. He was forced to sell the estate just when land in our part of the country was a drug in the market.”
Vansittart had never heard of this cheapness of land in the East Riding, but he felt that if this account of things were not actual truth, Eve Marchant fully believed what she was telling him.
“And then his horses, they all turned out so badly.”
“Ungrateful beasts.”
“You can understand that the life we lead at Fernhurst is not a very happy life for such a man as my father—a sportsman—a man whose youth was spent in the best society. It is hard for him to be mewed up with a family of girls. Everything we say and do must jar upon him.”
“Surely not everything. There must be times in which he can take delight in your society.”
“Oh, I’m afraid not. There are so many of us; and we seem so shallow and silly to a man of the world.”