r. "Everything
about us was respectable. We lived in a respectable house in a
respectable neighborhood, and twice every Sunday we went to church and
listened to a respectable clergyman. But!--Well, here's a chapter out of
the inside. I would go to bed and read in bed by a candle. Not a very
heinous offence, but contrary to the rule of the house. Sooner or later I
would hear a faint scuffling sound in the passage. That was my father
stealing secretly along to listen at my door and see what I was doing. I
covered the light of the candle with my hand, or perhaps blew it out--but
not so quickly but that he would see the streak of light beneath the
door. Then the play would begin. 'You are not reading in bed, are you?'
he would say. 'Certainly not,' I would reply. 'You are sure?' he would
insist. 'Of course, father,' I would answer. Then back he would go, but
only for a little way, and I would hear him come stealthily scuffling
back again. Perhaps the candle would be lit again already, or at all
events uncovered. Would he say anything? Oh, no! He had found out I was
lying. He felt that he had scored a point, and he would save it up. So we
would meet the next morning at breakfast, he knowing that I was a liar, I
knowing that he knew that I was a liar, and both pretending that we were
all in all to each other. A small thing, Sylvia. But crowd your life with
such small things? Spying and deceit and a game of catch-as-catch-can
played by the father and son! My letters were read--I used to know, for
roundabout questions would be put leading up to the elucidation of a
sentence which to any one but myself would be obscure! Do you think any
child could grow up straight, if his boyhood passed in that atmosphere of
trickery? I don't know. Only I think that before I was fifteen my way of
life was a sure and settled thing. It was certain that I should develop
upon the lines on which I was trained."

Garratt Skinner rose from his seat.

"There, I have done," he said. He looked at his daughter for a little
while, his eyes dwelling upon her beauty with a certain pleasure, and
even a certain wistfulness; he looked at her now much as she had been
wont to look at him in the early days of the house in Dorsetshire. It was
very plain that they were father and daughter.

"You are too good for your military man, my dear," he said, with a smile.
"Too pretty and too good. Don't you let him forget it!" And suddenly he
cried out with a burst of pass