“I have not enough lights, Sir Thomas. Does she,” said Frances, with a slight hesitation—“love him? And does he love her?”
“He is very fond of her; I’ll say that for him,” said Sir Thomas hurriedly. “Not perhaps in the boy-and-girl way. And she—well, if you put me to it, I think she likes him, Frances. They are as friendly as possible together. She would go to him, I believe, with any of her little difficulties. And he has as much faith in her—as much faith as in—— I can’t put a limit to his faith in her,” he said.
Frances looked up at him with the grave judicial look into which she had been forming her soft face. “All you say, Sir Thomas, looks like a father and child. I would do that to papa—or to you.”
Here he burst, to her astonishment, into a great fit of laughter, not without a little tremor, as of some other feeling in it. “You are a little Daniel,” he said. “That’s quite conclusive, my dear. Oh, wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”
“But——” Frances cried, a little bewildered. Then she added: “Well, you may laugh at me if you like. Of course, I am no judge; but if the gentleman is so like her father, cannot she be quite happy in being fond of him, instead of——? Oh no! Marrying is quite different—quite, quite different. I feel sure she would think so, if you were to ask her, herself,” she said.
“And what about the poor old man?”
“You did not say he was a poor old man; you said he was elderly, which means——”
“About my age.”
“That is not an old man. And worldly—which is not like you. I think, if he is what you say, that he would like better to keep his friend; because people can be friends, Sir Thomas, don’t you think, though one is young and one is old?”
“Certainly, Frances—witness you and me.”