"Ah! well, Posey dear, I'll not be hard on you. But tell me, please, what further passed between you and Lord Clandonald?"
"Absolutely nothing. All I could do was to turn the conversation away from him and me. I couldn't find the least little way to bring you into it, or to say, 'Unhand me, sir, my heart and faith are another's,' since his hands were in his pockets and mine in my muff, and we were both saturated with Channel fog. I just thanked him for all his kindness to me on the voyage, and told him what's true, that I'd never forget it; though, if he ever met me again I'd probably be a very different sort of Posey Winstanley. And then he calmed down, and it was all over forever, and I ran away to see if daddy had found his letter of credit—and—and—I've never seen or heard from Clandonald since."
"Posey, you are a child still, a charming child, and I love you for it, dear."
"It's awfully good of you, John, and the greatest possible relief. If you knew what a double-faced sort of thing I've felt myself to be all these months, remembering that I'd let another man almost propose to me, when I had given you my word of honor—there's one thing I'd like to ask before we've done with the subject, though. What does it mean when a person is by you and you'd give, oh! anything if they wouldn't go away?"
John started genuinely. A vision flashed to him of those blessed maddening hours in the train the day before, when Helen and he had sat together, and he jealously begrudged every revolution of the iron wheels that, without mercy, carried them toward their parting.
"I don't know, Posey," he murmured guiltily. "Why in the world do you ask me that?"
"Because I thought you would tell me, honestly," said she, with a speculative expression. "It has bothered me often, wondering. But it doesn't matter. Now you are here, everything seems straight and clear before me. Shall I ever forget daddy's rapturous old face when he sat by your supper-tray at the library table, last night, forcing you to eat indigestible food, and looking from one to the other of us?"
"But he has aged, dear," said Glynn, with a twinge of pain. "One sees the spirit in his face above the flesh. We must never let him know care or trouble again, little girl. We must strengthen his arms, one on either side of him, and make him walk easily through life."
"How beautifully you talk, John!" cried she. "Ah! No Englishman could ever have felt that way toward my daddy. No other man could give him what you do. Yes, you are right. It's our life-work to put him between us, and look out for him every day."
"And to do so," went on Glynn resolutely, "we should marry soon."