"But I hoped that you would be glad of it too,"
he told her, bluntly. A curious sense of reliance upon
his superiority in years had come to him. If he could
make his air elderly and paternal enough, it seemed
likely that she would defer to it. "I'm talking to you
as I would to my niece, you know," he added, plausibly.
She turned her head to make a fleeting survey of his face,
as if the point of view took her by surprise.
"I don't understand," she said. "You are providing
an income for my father, because you wish to speak
to me like an uncle. Is that it?"
He laughed, somewhat disconsolately. "No--that isn't it,"
he said, and laughed again. "I couldn't tell, you know,
that you wouldn't want to talk about your father."
"Why, there's no reason in the world for not talking of him,"
she made haste to declare. "And if he's got something
good in the City, I'm sure I'm as glad as anyone. He is
the sort that ought always to have a good deal of money.
I mean, it will bring out his more amiable qualities.
He does not shine much in adversity--any more than I do."
Thorpe felt keenly that there were fine things to be said
here--but he had confidence in nothing that came to
his tongue. "I've been a poor man all my life--till now,"
was his eventual remark.
"Please don't tell me that you have been very happy
in your poverty," she adjured him, with the dim flicker
of a returning smile.
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