"Dear child," he said, "your duties with Madame de Moidrey will keep you too busy to think about anybody in particular. You will find in her a friend; you will find happiness there, I am very certain——"
"If you wish it, I will go. But when you leave, happiness departs."
"Philippa, that is nonsense——"
"No... And I had supposed, if I earned my living, that you would permit me to live with you—or near you somewhere.... Just to know you were living near me—even if I did not see you every evening—would rest me.... I had hoped for that, mon ami."
"Philippa, dear, it would not do. That is too Bohemian to be anything safer than merely agreeable. But the surroundings and duties you are going to have with Madame de Moidrey are exactly what you need and what I could have desired for any friend of mine in your circumstances."
The girl's head began to droop, where she was seated on the stern seat of the boat.
He said:
"The influences of such a house, of such a home, of such people, are far better for you than to saunter out and face the world, depending for companionship upon a man not yet too old to arouse that fussy world's suspicion and perhaps resentment. You must have a better purpose in life."
She remained silent for a few moments, then, not lifting her head, and her slim hands nervously plaiting her scarlet skirt:
"Anywhere alone with you in the world would be a sufficient purpose in life for me.... No matter how I earned my bread—if, when toil ended with evening, you were the reward—and—consolation——" A single tear fell, glittering; she turned her head sharply and kept it turned.