“Why not now?”
“No, I could not sleep unforgiven.”
“But why should you? What if I forgave you?”
Horrible thoughts flashed through Marcus’s mind. What could she have to confess? Happier thoughts—what could there be that he would not forgive? forgive her? There were things he could not forgive a man. All the things he had heard of modern girls and their ways passed through his mind, all the things he had ever heard of men from the days of man’s innocency until now. Then he looked at Diana. The modern girl was all right; she was delicious. But men—men? Would they find Diana distracting? Or was it because he was no longer young that her youth seemed so appealing, her freshness, her gaiety so infectious? He had always felt he could never have made a successful or even a comfortably happy father. A creature like this he could never have let out of his sight: all men would have become his enemies by very reason of their existence.
“Once Was,” said Diana softly, “why so dreamy? You make me sleepy. Good-morning!”
She went to bed, unconfessed, unforgiven. Pillar put out the lights downstairs. Marcus put them out on his landing. Above that it was Diana’s business. “Don’t forget the lights, Diana,” he called.
At one o’clock in the morning Diana was singing in her bath and Marcus lay in bed wondering what it was she wanted to confess. He fell asleep uncertain whether he liked a niece in the house or not. He had pictured to himself a quiet, mousey niece, demure and obedient! But how charming she had looked on the sofa!—she got her feet from him, did she? A great attraction in women, pretty feet; and none too common. He must see that she gave enough for her boots. It was where some women economized. He shuddered to think of women out in the street, on muddy days, in house shoes. Horrible!
Diana came down to breakfast. That was to her credit. To bed late: yet up early. She looked delicious: not in the least tired and very fresh and clean. A girl may be both without looking triumphantly so, as Diana did.
After breakfast with Marcus was a sacred hour, dedicated to his newspapers and his pipe, yet after breakfast Diana planted herself on the edge of his chair and proceeded to get to know him. Not until she had done that, she said, could she make her confession.
“What is it?” he asked, ready to forgive anything, if only that he might be left in peace.