h for a child who had never known
demonstrative affection. But she had lived a life so starved of all
feeling that this was no longer enough for her. What was the good of
telling him the story of all these miseries now past and gone, of all
those bewildering difficulties and humiliations? What she must tell him
was difficult enough to say. She approached it by remarking cheerfully:

"You haven't even asked me where I am taking you." He started like a
somnambulist awakened suddenly, and there was now some meaning in his
stare; a sort of alarmed speculation. He opened his mouth slowly. Flora
struck in with forced gaiety. "You would never, guess."

He waited, still more startled and suspicious. "Guess! Why don't you
tell me?"

He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward towards her. She got hold of
one of his hands. "You must know first . . . " She paused, made an
effort: "I am married, papa."

For a moment they kept perfectly still in that cab rolling on at a steady
jog-trot through a narrow city street full of bustle. Whatever she
expected she did not expect to feel his hand snatched away from her grasp
as if from a burn or a contamination. De Barral fresh from the stagnant
torment of the prison (where nothing happens) had not expected that sort
of news. It seemed to stick in his throat. In strangled low tones he
cried out, "You--married? You, Flora! When? Married! What for? Who
to? Married!"

His eyes which were blue like hers, only faded, without depth, seemed to
start out of their orbits. He did really look as if he were choking. He
even put his hand to his collar . . . "

* * * * *

"You know," continued Marlow out of the shadow of the bookcase and nearly
invisible in the depths of the arm-chair, "the only time I saw him he had
given me the impression of absolute rigidity, as though he had swallowed
a poker. But it seems that he could collapse. I can hardly picture this
to myself. I understand that he did collapse to a certain extent in his
corner of the cab. The unexpected had crumpled him up. She regarded him
perplexed, pitying, a little disillusioned, and nodded at him gravely:
Yes. Married. What she did not like was to see him smile in a manner
far from encouraging to the devotion of a daughter. There was something
unintentionally savage in it. Old de Barral could not quite command his
muscles, as yet. But he had recovered command of his gentle voice.

"You were just sayin