"Now, perhaps, I shall have time to appreciate the fact that at last I am the happy possessor of a beautiful daughter as well as a headstrong son," he said. Then, after the briefest hesitation: "Vita, my dear," he went on, in his old-fashioned manner, while his gaze took in the radiant beauty turned abruptly towards him, "it seems to me that the most wonderful thing in the world has happened to me. The long, lonely life seems to have entirely passed. I mean the loneliness which only a man can feel who is deprived for all time of the association of his own womankind. Now at last I can draw deep comfort from the reflection of Ruxton's happiness. Now, however slight my claim, I can nevertheless claim something of a woman's filial regard. The grey of life has been tinted for me since you have chosen to make my boy happy, and as time goes on I can see that tint develop into the roseate hue of a happiness I somehow never thought to feel again. Bless you, my dear, for coming into an old man's life; and you, too, my boy," he went on, turning to the smiling Ruxton, "for having given me such a daughter. I feel this is the moment for saying this. The work is done now in workmanlike fashion, and the little triumph of it all makes me want to tell you of this thing that I feel."
Vita impulsively left her husband's side. She rose from the settee and crossed over to her second father and held out both her hands.
"You have made it difficult for me to say a word——" she began, smiling down upon him with her glorious eyes. Then she seemed to become speechless.
The oriflamme of her red-gold hair shone with a delicious burnish under the shaded electric light. Her flushed oval cheek glowed with a suggestion of thrilling happiness. The old man caught and held her hands, and, the next moment, she had bent her slimly graceful body and impressed upon his rugged cheek a kiss of deep affection.
Still she remained speechless, and she turned and glanced with dewy eyes in appeal to the great husband looking on.
"Won't you help me?" she demanded wistfully.
Ruxton laughed happily.
"Help?" he said quickly. Then he shook his head. "No, no. You don't need any help. Just tell him what you once told me. You remember." His eyes became serious. "You said 'I love him almost as if he were really my own father.' He won't need more."
And Vita obeyed him, reciting the words almost like some child. But she meant them, and felt them, and at the last word her glance was full of a whimsical light as she added of her own initiative—
"And aren't you two dears going to smoke?"