"I did not mean that your fortune is a mere trifle, but that the fact of its being in his hands rather than any other honest man's is a mere trifle. What I wished to do was to draw a contrast between the comparatively triviality of the guardianship of your money compared with that of another thing."
His eyes were now fixed, staring ahead; and although she looked up into his face, he did not glance down, and she could gather no information through her eyes.
She said, in a tone of faint wonder:
"I do not know what you mean. My father always told me I should have nothing but the money."
Still keeping his eyes fixed ahead, he said, in a dull, slow, dreamy way:
"Well, there was one thing in your father's gift, for a time at all events, and the will gives it to no one. Supposing the guardianship of that thing were in your gift now, would you, considering that I am the only relative you have alive, and that you have agreed to look on me as your best friend,—would you, I ask, give me the guardianship of that thing?"
"But is there any such thing? I certainly never heard of it," she said, in greater wonder.
"There is such a thing."
"And it is in my power to give you the guardianship?" she asked.
"Absolutely, Cousin Maud."