"No," said Rupert; "that's just what I don't. But I can find out, easy."
Dolly did not say, Do; she did not say anything; she stood pondering and anxious by the window. Neither did Rupert ask further; he acted.
It came by degrees to be a pretty regular thing, that Mr. Copley spent the evening abroad, excused himself from going anywhere with his family, and when they did see him wore an uncertain, purposeless, vagrant sort of look and air. By degrees this began to strike even Mrs. Copley.
"I wish you would just make up your mind to marry Mr. St. Leger!" she said almost weepingly one day. "Then all would go right. I believe it would make me well, to begin with; and it would bring your father right back to his old self."
"How, mother?" Dolly said sadly.
"It would give him spirit at once. It is because he is out of spirits that he does so." (Mrs. Copley did not explain herself.) "I know, if he were once sure of seeing you Mrs. St. Leger, all would come right. Lawrence would help him; he could help him then."
"Who would help me?"
"Nonsense, Dolly! Who would help you choose your dresses and wear your diamonds; that is all the difficulty you would have. But all's going wrong!" said Mrs. Copley, sinking into tears; "and you are selfish, like everybody else, and think only of yourself."
Dolly bore this in silence. It startled her, however, greatly, to find her own view of things held by her much less sharp-sighted mother. She pondered on what was best to do. Should she sit still and quietly see her father lost irretrievably in the bad habits which were creeping upon him? But what step could she take? She asked herself this question evening after evening.
It was late one night, and Lawrence as well as her father had been out ever since dinner. Mrs. Copley, weary and dispirited, had gone to bed. Dolly stood at the window looking out, not to see how the moonlight sparkled on the water and glanced on the vessels, but in a hopeless sort of expectancy watching for her father to come. The stream of passers-by had grown thin, and was growing thinner.