‘Yes,’ said Cytherea absently. She was still thinking whether duty to Owen and her father, which asked for silence on her knowledge of her father’s unfortunate love, or duty to the woman embracing her, which seemed to ask for confidence, ought to predominate. Here was a solution. She would wait till Miss Aldclyffe referred to her acquaintanceship and attachment to Cytherea’s father in past times: then she would tell her all she knew: that would be honour.
‘Why can’t you kiss me as I can kiss you? Why can’t you!’ She impressed upon Cytherea’s lips a warm motherly salute, given as if in the outburst of strong feeling, long checked, and yearning for something to love and be loved by in return.
‘Do you think badly of me for my behaviour this evening, child? I don’t know why I am so foolish as to speak to you in this way. I am a very fool, I believe. Yes. How old are you?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Eighteen!... Well, why don’t you ask me how old I am?’
‘Because I don’t want to know.’
‘Never mind if you don’t. I am forty-six; and it gives me greater pleasure to tell you this than it does to you to listen. I have not told my age truly for the last twenty years till now.’
‘Why haven’t you?’
‘I have met deceit by deceit, till I am weary of it—weary, weary—and I long to be what I shall never be again—artless and innocent, like you. But I suppose that you, too, will, prove to be not worth a thought, as every new friend does on more intimate knowledge. Come, why don’t you talk to me, child? Have you said your prayers?’
‘Yes—no! I forgot them to-night.’