Why did she? It was his first question
about herself but she did not answer it. She did not want to talk of
these horrors. They were impossible to describe. She perceived though
that he had not expected an answer, because she heard him muttering to
himself that: "There was half a million's worth of work done and
material accumulated there."

"You mustn't think of these things, papa," she said firmly. And he
asked her with that invariable gentleness, in which she seemed now to
detect some rather ugly shades, what else had he to think about?
Another year or two, if they had only left him alone, he and everybody
else would have been all right, rolling in money; and she, his daughter,
could have married anybody--anybody. A lord.

All this was to him like yesterday, a long yesterday a yesterday gone
over innumerable times, analysed meditated upon for years. It had a
vividness and force for that old man of which his daughter who had not
been shut out of the world could have no idea. She was to him the only
living figure out of that past, and it was perhaps in perfect good faith
that he added, coldly, inexpressive and thin-lipped: "I lived only for
you, I may say. I suppose you understand that. There were only you and
me."

Moved by this declaration, wondering that it did not warm her heart
more, she murmured a few endearing words while the uppermost thought in
her mind was that she must tell him now of the situation. She had
expected to be questioned anxiously about herself--and while she desired
it she shrank from the answers she would have to make. But her father
seemed strangely, unnaturally incurious. It looked as if there would be
no questions. Still this was an opening. This seemed to be the time
for her to begin. And she began. She began by saying that she had
always felt like that. There were two of them, to live for each other.
And if he only knew what she had gone through!

Ensconced in his corner, with his arms folded, he stared out of the cab
window at the street. How little he was changed after all. It was the
unmovable expression, the faded stare she used to see on the esplanade
whenever walking by his side hand in hand she raised her eyes to his
face--while she chattered, chattered. It was the same stiff, silent
figure which at a word from her would turn rigidly into a shop and buy
her anything it occurred to her that she would like to have. Flora de
Barral's voice faltered. He bent o