ted me! Let me see--"

She shook her head negatively. And he was appalled. He thought to
himself: Who can he be? Some miserable, silly youth without a penny.
Or perhaps some scoundrel? Without making any expressive movement he
wrung his loosely-clasped hands till the joints cracked. He looked at
her. She was pretty. Some low scoundrel who will cast her off. Some
plausible vagabond... "You couldn't wait--eh?"

Again she made a slight negative sign.

Why not? What was the hurry? She cast down her eyes. "It had to be.
Yes. It was sudden, but it had to be."

He leaned towards her, his mouth open, his eyes wild with virtuous
anger, but meeting the absolute candour of her raised glance threw
himself back into his corner again.

"So tremendously in love with each other--was that it? Couldn't let a
father have his daughter all to himself even for a day after--after such
a separation. And you know I never had anyone, I had no friends. What
did I want with those people one meets in the City. The best of them
are ready to cut your throat. Yes! Business men, gentlemen, any sort
of men and women--out of spite, or to get something. Oh yes, they can
talk fair enough if they think there's something to be got out of
you..." His voice was a mere breath yet every word came to Flora as
distinctly as if charged with all the moving power of passion.--"My
girl, I looked at them making up to me and I would say to myself: What
do I care for all that! I am a business man. I am the great Mr de
Barral (yes, yes, some of them twisted their mouths at it, but I _was_
the great Mr de Barral) and I have my little girl. I wanted nobody and
I have never had anybody."

A true emotion had unsealed his lips but the words that came out of them
were no louder than the murmur of a light wind. It died away.

"That's just it," said Flora de Barral under her breath. Without
removing his eyes from her he took off his hat. It was a tall hat. The
hat of the trial. The hat of the thumb-nail sketches in the illustrated
papers. One comes out in the same clothes, but seclusion counts! It is
well-known that lurid visions haunt secluded men, monks, hermits--then
why not prisoners? De Barral the convict took off the silk hat of the
financier de Barral and deposited it on the front seat of the cab. Then
he blew out his cheeks. He was red in the face.

"And then what happens?" he began again in his contained voice. "Here I
am, ove