"You're very good," replied Gilbert awkwardly. "Is Miss—Miss Meggison in the house? I should like to speak to her."
"My daughter, sir, has gone out," said Meggison, seating himself, and waving a hand grandiloquently towards the other chair, "on a necessary errand connected with household matters. Poor child—poor child; I wish sometimes she did not have to work so hard."
"So do I," said Gilbert, looking squarely at him. "She's young, you know, Meggison—hardly more than a child; and all her youth is slipping away, and she'll only know too late that it's gone. It seems a pity, doesn't it?"
Daniel Meggison sniffed audibly, and turned his head away; began slowly and methodically to search himself, until presently he drew from out his clothing a doubtful-looking handkerchief. This he applied first to one eye, and then to the other.
"Youth, sir, is a beautiful thing," he said. He gave a glance towards the house, and then leant across the table, and laid a hand on the arm of the younger man; he still kept that handkerchief to one eye, but the other was bright and alert. "Don't misunderstand me; don't think that I speak lightly. I have watched that child grow up—like a flower, sir. I have lain awake at night thinking about her—wondering about her—planning for her. I have mentioned to friends at my—my club that I am tortured concerning her. 'What,' I have asked, 'is to become of one so tender—so loving to an unfortunate father—so willing to work for that unfortunate father?' That is the question I have asked others as well as myself. Mr. Byfield, she is not strong; in other words, she is very frail. Her mother was never strong; I worshipped her mother, and her mother (I can say it with pride) was devoted to me. You are her friend—Bessie's friend, I mean; has it ever occurred to you that she is not strong? I am her father—you will understand my anxiety."
Gilbert Byfield had got up with some impatience from his chair, and had moved away down the length of the garden. For a moment he could not trust himself to speak, or to answer that hypocritical whining voice. He knew, however, that if he was to do anything to help the girl he must control himself, and must make what use he could of the one instrument ready to his hand. So he walked back to the table, and stood there, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the old man.
"I am glad we think alike," he said slowly. "I do not think she is strong; it is a thousand pities that she cannot be taken out of this place—a thousand pities that she has to work so hard to—to support other people."
"I agree with you," said Meggison, eagerly getting up from his chair, and coming hurriedly round the table to the young man. "Sometimes, sir," he exclaimed, with a sort of feeble passion—"sometimes I am roused almost to madness at the thought that I am so helpless—that I can do nothing. The truth of the matter is that I was never brought up to do anything—not anything that would pay; I blame my parents bitterly for that. My late wife—devoted soul!—would often say that I was never really fitted to cope with the world. 'You are by nature and by instinct, Daniel, a gentleman and a man of leisure,' she would say; 'it seems natural that others should provide for you.' And she knew me—knew me intimately, sir."
"I'm sure she did," said Gilbert, looking at him steadily. "But we are wandering from the subject a little—the subject of your daughter. Her mother is gone; it is not too late to do something for the child."
"True—very true," exclaimed Meggison, with an air of deep determination. "Bless you, my dear sir! Now—what shall we do? Let's put our heads together."