him a little said, "How he does
dress!"--those who knew him better said, "How _does_ he?" The one stray
gleam of comedy just now in his daughter's eyes was the funny feeling
he momentarily made her have of being herself "looked up" by him in
sordid lodgings. For a minute after he came in it was as if the place
were her own and he the visitor with susceptibilities. He gave you
funny feelings, he had indescribable arts, that quite turned the
tables: that had been always how he came to see her mother so long as
her mother would see him. He came from places they had often not known
about, but he patronised Lexham Gardens. Kate's only actual expression
of impatience, however, was "I'm glad you're so much better!"

"I'm not so much better, my dear--I'm exceedingly unwell; the proof of
which is, precisely, that I've been out to the chemist's--that beastly
fellow at the corner." So Mr. Croy showed he could qualify the humble
hand that assuaged him. "I'm taking something he has made up for me.
It's just why I've sent for you--that you may see me as I really am."

"Oh papa, it's long since I've ceased to see you otherwise than as you
really are! I think we've all arrived by this time at the right word
for that: 'You're beautiful--_n'en parlons plus.'_ You're as beautiful
as ever--you look lovely." He judged meanwhile her own appearance, as
she knew she could always trust him to do; recognising, estimating,
sometimes disapproving, what she wore, showing her the interest he
continued to take in her. He might really take none at all, yet she
virtually knew herself the creature in the world to whom he was least
indifferent. She had often enough wondered what on earth, at the pass
he had reached, could give him pleasure, and she had come back, on
these occasions, to that. It gave him pleasure that she was handsome,
that she was, in her way, a sensible value. It was at least as marked,
nevertheless, that he derived none from similar conditions, so far as
they _were_ similar, in his other child. Poor Marian might be handsome,
but he certainly didn't care. The hitch here, of course, was that, with
whatever beauty, her sister, widowed and almost in want, with four
bouncing children, was not a sensible value. She asked him, the next
thing, how long he had been in his actual quarters, though aware of how
little it mattered, how little any answer he might make would probably
have in common with the truth. She failed in fact to notice his an