III

Nina was not of an imaginative disposition.  The romance of this extraordinary encounter made no appeal to her.  She was the sort of girl that constantly reads novelettes, and yet always, with fatigued scorn, refers to them as ‘silly.’  Stupid little Nina was intensely practical at heart, and it was the practical side of her father’s reappearance that engaged her birdlike mind.  She did not stop to reflect that truth is stranger than fiction.  Her tiny heart was not agitated by any ecstatic ponderings upon the wonder and mystery of fate.  She did not feel strangely drawn towards Lionel Belmont, nor did she feel that he supplied a something which had always been wanting to her.

On the other hand, her pride—­and Nina was very proud—­found much satisfaction in the fact that her father, having turned up, was so fine, handsome, dashing, good-humoured, and wealthy.  It was well, and excellently well, and delicious, to have a father like that.  The possession of such a father opened up vistas of a future so enticing and glorious that her present career became instantly loathsome to her.

It suddenly seemed impossible that she could have tolerated the existence of a hotel clerk for a single week.  Her eyes were opened, and she saw, as many women have seen, that luxury was an absolute necessity to her.  All her ideas soared with the magic swiftness of the bean-stalk.  And at the same time she was terribly afraid, unaccountably afraid, to confront Mr. Belmont and tell him that she was his Nina; he was entirely unaware that he had a Nina.

‘I’m your daughter!  I know by your moles!’

She whispered the words in her tiny heart, and felt sure that she could never find courage to say them aloud to that great and important man.  The announcement would be too monstrous, incredible, and absurd.  People would laugh.  He would laugh.  And Nina could stand anything better than being laughed at.  Even supposing she proved to him his paternity—­she thought of the horridness of going to lawyers’ offices—­he might decline to recognise her.  Or he might throw her fifty pounds a year, as one throws sixpence to an importunate crossing-sweeper, to be rid of her.  The United States existed in her mind chiefly as a country of highly-remarkable divorce laws, and she thought that Mr. Belmont might have married again.  A fashionable and arrogant Mrs. Belmont, and a dazzling Miss Belmont, aged possibly eighteen, might arrive, both of them steeped in all conceivable luxury, at any moment.  Where would Nina be then, with her two-and-eleven-pence-halfpenny blouse from Glave’s?...

Mr. Belmont, accompanied by Alphonse, the head-waiter in the salle a manger, descended in the lift and crossed the hall to the portico, where he stood talking for a few seconds.  Mr. Belmont turned, and, as he conversed with Alphonse, gazed absently in the direction of the bureau.  He looked straight through the pretty captive.  After all, despite his superficial heartiness, she could be nothing to him—­so rich, assertive, and truly important.  A hansom was called for him, and he departed; she observed that he was in evening dress now.