“I wonder often,” he repeated, “my dear, why you stay; for there is nothing to recompense you for such a sacrifice. If it is for my sake, it is a pity, for I could really get on very well alone. We don’t see very much of each other; and till now, if you will pardon me for saying so, your mind has been taken up with a pursuit which—you could have carried on much better at home.”
“You mean what you are pleased to call flirtation, papa? No, I could not have carried on that sort of thing at home. The conditions are altogether different. It is difficult to account for my staying, when, clearly, you don’t consider me of any use, and don’t want me.”
“I have never said that. Of course I am very glad to have you. It is in the bond, and therefore my right. I was regarding the question solely from your point of view.”
Constance did not answer immediately. She paused to think. When she had turned the subject over in her mind, she replied, “I need not tell you how complicated one’s motives get. It takes a long time to make sure which is really the fundamental one, and how it works.”
“You are a philosopher, my dear.”
“Not more than one must be with Society pressing upon one as it does, papa. Nothing is straightforward nowadays. You have to dig quite deep down before you come at the real meaning of anything you do; and very often, when you get hold of it, you don’t quite like to acknowledge it, even to yourself.”
“That is rather an alarming preface, but very just too. If you don’t like to acknowledge it to yourself, you will like still less to acknowledge it to me?”
“I don’t quite see that: perhaps I am harder upon myself than you would be. No; but I prefer to think of it a little more before I tell you. I have a kind of feeling now that it is because—but you will think that a shabby sort of pride—it is because I am too proud to own myself beaten, which I should do if I were to go back.”
“It is a very natural sort of pride,” he said.
“But it is not all that. I must go a little deeper still. Not to-night. I have done as much thinking as I am quite able for to-night.”