"This girl," Cornelia said to herself, "has everything which I have not—beauty, wealth, Bruce Neckart's love. Yet she looks at that weak old man as if he were all that was left her in the world." She had put Jane before on the general basis of antipathy which she had to everything in the world that was not masculine, but the feeling had kindled since last night into active dislike.
When breakfast was over and their guests had gone to their rooms to make ready to meet the train, Jane decoyed the captain away to Bruno's kennel, where he was tied during Mr. Van Ness's stay. Once out of sight she retied his cravat, arranged his white hair to her liking, stroked his sunken cheeks. Here was something actual and real. She knew now that she had never had anything that was truly her own but the kind foolish face looking down on her. She never would have anything more. Only an hour ago life had opened for her wide and fair as the dawn: now it had narrowed to this old hand in hers, to his breath, that came and went—O God, how feebly!
"You are looking stronger to-day, father. You are gaining every day. Oh that is quite certain! Very soon we shall have you as well and strong as you were at forty."
What if she had not had money this last year? He never could have lived through it. God had been kind to her—kind! She pressed his hand to her breast with a quick glance out to the bright sky. The Captain saw her chin quivering. His own thoughts ran partly in the same line as hers.
"Oh, I'm gaining, no doubt of it. Though I never could have pulled through this year if we had had to live in the old way. God bless Will Laidley for leaving the money as he did!"
"It was not his to leave otherwise!" she cried indignantly.
"Tut, tut, Jane! Of course it was his. By every law. He could have flung it away where he chose; and he had a perfect right to do it."
It was not God who had been kind to her, then: it was only that she had stolen the money?
"Come, Jenny: we must go back to the house."
"In a moment, father. Go on: I will follow you."