she
constrained herself to ask:

'Does he think I can be all you wish?'

Michael looked at her with a smile.

'Sidney has no less faith in you than I have, be sure of that.'

'I've been thinking--that perhaps he distrusted me a little.'

'Why, my child?'

'I don't quite know. But there's been a little difference in him, I
think, since we came back.'

Michael's countenance fell.

'Difference? How?'

But Jane could not go further. She wished she had not spoken. Her face
began to grow hot, and she moved away.

'It's only your fancy,' continued Michael. 'But may be that--You think
he isn't quite so easy in his talking to you as he was?'

'I've fancied it. But it was only--'

'Well, you may be partly right,' said her grandfather, softening his
voice. 'See, Jane, I'll tell you something. I think there's no harm;
perhaps I ought to. You must know that I hadn't meant to speak to
Sidney of these things just when I did. It came about, because _he_ had
something to tell _me_, and something I was well pleased to hear. It
was about you, Jane, and in that way I got talking--something about
you, my child. Afterwards, I asked him whether he wouldn't speak to you
yourself, but he said no--not till you'd heard all that was before you.
I think I understood him, and I dare say you will, if you think it
over.'

Matter enough for thinking over, in these words. Did she understand
them aright? Before leaving the room she had not dared to look her
grandfather in the face, but she knew well that he was regarding her
still with the same smile. Did she understand him aright?

Try to read her mind. The world had all at once grown very large, a
distress to her imagination; worse still, she had herself become a
person of magnified importance, irrecognisable in her own sight,
moving, thinking so unnaturally. Jane, I assure you, had thought very
little of herself hitherto--in both senses of the phrase. Joyous
because she could not help it, full of gratitude, admiration,
generosity, she occupied her thoughts very much with other people, but
knew not self-seeking, knew not self-esteem. The one thing affecting
herself over which she mused frequently was her suffering as a little
thrall in Clerkenwell Close, and the result was to make her very
humble. She had been an ill-used, ragged, work-worn child, and
something of that degradation seemed, in her feeling, still to cling to
her. Could she have known Bob Hewett's view of her position, s