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, overthrown, broken by envy, malice and all uncharitableness. I come
out--and what do I find? I find that my gi