“Papa, darling.”

As he turned his head slowly she thought his eyes had the look of mortal ennui that Rembrandt depicts in those of Lazarus rising from the tomb and coming back to life.

She delivered her message, to which he replied, “He can come.”

“I think I ought to tell you,” she continued, “what he’s coming for.”

She gave him the gist of her conversation with Ashley on the previous day and the one great decision to which they had led him up.  It would have gratified Ashley, could he have overheard, to note the skill with which she conveyed precisely that quality of noble precipitancy in his words and resolutions which he himself feared they had lacked.  If a slight suspicion could have risen in his mind, it would have been that of a certain haste on her part to forestall any possible questioning of his eagerness such as he had occasion to observe in himself.  That might have wounded him.

“So he wants to go ahead,” Guion said, when she had finished.

“Apparently.”

“Can’t he do that and still leave things as they are?”

“He seems to think he can’t.”

“I don’t see why.  If I have to owe the money to any one, I’d rather owe it to Davenant.”

“So should I.”

“Do you really want to marry him?”

The question startled her.  “Marry him?  Who?”

There was a look almost of humor in Guion’s forlorn eyes.  “Well, I didn’t mean Davenant.  I didn’t suppose there was any—­”

“Papa, darling,” she hastened to say, “as things are at present I’d rather not marry any one at all.  There’s so much for me to do in getting life on another footing for us both that marriage seems to belong to another kind of world.”

He raised himself on his elbow, turning toward her.  “Then why don’t you tell him so?”

“I have; but he won’t take that as a reason.  And, besides, I’ve said I would marry him if he’d give up this wild project—­”

“But you’re in love with him, aren’t you?  You may as well tell me,” he continued, as she colored.  “I must have some data to go on.”

“I—­I was in love with him,” she faltered.  “I suppose I am still.  But while everything is as it is, I—­I—­can’t tell; I—­I don’t know.  I’m—­I’m feeling so many other things that I don’t know whether I feel—­feel love—­or not.  I dare say I do.  But it’s like asking a man if he’s fond of playing a certain game when he thinks he’s going to die.”

He slipped down into bed again, pulling the coverlet about his chin and turning his face away.  As he said nothing more, she rose to go.  “About eleven, then, papa dear.”

She could hear a muffled assent as she left the room.  She was afraid he was crying.