"Why, his not being about at such a time—not appearing to take any interest in his daughter's affairs, especially her deliverance from a loveless marriage. It struck me as curious when I saw her. But I set it down to the possibility of there being bad blood between them. Is there?"
"No, there is not," said Ailsa, falling unconsciously into the trap. "Kathie is not the kind of girl to hold a grudge against any one, Mr. Cleek. She is intensely emotional, but she is also intensely loyal. The very last person in the world she would be likely to treat spitefully would be her father."
"I see. She is fond of him, then? Probably I have heard the wrong version of the story. Have I? I was told that it was he who compelled her, very much against her will, to accept the attentions of the—er—Count de Louvisan and to become engaged to him. That she begged her father to save her from marrying the man, but he would not—or could not—consent."
"That is quite true. You have not been misinformed. She did just what you have been told. Indeed, I happen to know that she even went so far as to get down on her knees to Lord St. Ulmer and implore him to kill her rather than to compel her to give up Geoff—and especially for a man she loathed as she did the Count de Louvisan. It was useless, however. That same night Lord St. Ulmer asked her to come to him alone in the library at Ulmer Court. They were together for two hours. The next day she accepted the Count de Louvisan."
"I see!" said Cleek. "Of course, his lordship told her something which influenced her beyond her own will and desires. Do you happen to know what that something was?"
"No. She has never told me one word beyond that she went into that library with a breaking heart, and came out of it with a broken one."
"And in spite of all that, she still loves this father who compelled her to give up all that life held, eh?"
"I didn't say that. I said that she was loyal to him, not that she loved him. How could she love a father whom she had not seen since she was a baby—whom she did not even know when he came back to claim her? Why, she hadn't even a picture to tell her what he looked like, and in all the years he was away he never wrote her so much as one line. A girl couldn't love a father like that. She might like him, she might be grateful to him, as Katharine is, for loading her with all the things that money can buy; but to love him—— What is the matter, Mr. Cleek? What in the world made you say 'Phew' like that?"
"Nothing! Do you happen to know if the late Count de Louvisan was ever in Argentina, Miss Lorne?"
"No, I do not. Why?"