The General was a bad dissembler. He blurted it all out at once.
“To tell you the truth, I wanted to take you out to Spain. I went round to see Jones, to learn what he said about it. He forbids it.”
She looked at him anxiously. Yes, he seemed to have aged even the last week. A spasm of reproach shot through her that she had not been quicker to notice his failing health. Guy had usurped her thoughts too much.
“But I don’t think it will be difficult to arrange. I can soon get hold of some female dragon, some elderly chaperon who will take you.”
The girl’s eyes filled with tears. Not for the first time did she appreciate that unselfish parental love, the love that gives everything, and asks so little in return.
She kissed him very tenderly. “No, no, a thousand times no, you kindest of all kind fathers. Until you get well and strong again, I would not leave you for a thousand lovers.”
He patted her hand. He was the most unselfish of men, but it pleased him very much to hear her say that much. The stranger who had come into her life was not going to oust the old father from his place in her heart.
“We have been so much to each other, little girl, since your dear mother died, have we not?” he asked gently.
“More than so much,” she whispered back. “Oh, more than so much. We have been everything to each other.” At that moment even her lover was almost forgotten. A few hours later, she stole out of the house, and called on the doctor.
“My father is worse,” she said impetuously, when she entered the consulting-room.