She said nothing more—she had placed him there with that question, and the silence lasted a minute, broken by the call of an appealing costermonger, which came in with the mild March air, with the shabby sunshine, fearfully unbecoming to the room, and with the small homely hum of Chirk Street.
Presently he moved nearer, but as if her question had quite dropped.
"I don't see what has so suddenly wound you up."
"I should have thought you might perhaps guess.
Let me at any rate tell you.
Aunt Maud has made me a proposal.
But she has also made me a condition.
She wants to keep me."
"And what in the world else could she possibly want?"
"Oh, I don't know—many things.
I'm not so precious a capture," the girl a little dryly explained. "No one has ever wanted to keep me before."
Looking always what was proper, her father looked now still more surprised than interested.
"You've not had proposals?" He spoke as if that were incredible of Lionel Croy's daughter; as if indeed such an admission scarce consorted, even in filial intimacy, with her high spirit and general form.
"Not from rich relations.
She's extremely kind to me, but it's time, she says, that we should understand each other."
Mr. Croy fully assented.
"Of course it is—high time; and I can quite imagine what she means by it."
"Are you very sure?"
"Oh, perfectly.
She means that she'll 'do' for you handsomely if you'll break off all relations with me.
You speak of her condition.
Her condition's of course that."
"Well then," said Kate, "it's what has wound me up.
Here I am."
He showed with a gesture how thoroughly he had taken it in; after which, within a few seconds, he had, quite congruously, turned the situation about.
"Do you really suppose me in a position to justify your throwing yourself upon me?"
She waited a little, but when she spoke it was clear.
"Yes."
"Well then, you're a bigger fool than I should have ventured to suppose you."
"Why so?
You live.
You flourish.
You bloom."
"Ah, how you've all always hated me!" he murmured with a pensive gaze again at the window.
"No one could be less of a mere cherished memory," she declared as if she had not heard him. "You're an actual person, if there ever was one.
We agreed just now that you're beautiful.
You strike me, you know, as—in your own way—much more firm on your feet than I am.
Don't put it to me therefore as monstrous that the fact that we are, after all, parent and child should at present in some manner count for us.
My idea has been that it should have some effect for each of us.
I don't at all, as I told you just now," she pursued, "make out your life; but whatever it is I hereby offer you to accept it.
And, on my side, I'll do everything I can for you."
"I see," said Lionel Croy.
Then, with the sound of extreme relevance, "And what can you?"
She only, at this, hesitated, and he took up her silence.
"You can describe yourself—to yourself—as, in a fine flight, giving up your aunt for me; but what good, I should like to know, would your fine flight do me?" As she still said nothing he developed a little. "We're not possessed of so much, at this charming pass, please to remember, as that we can afford not to take hold of any perch held out to us.
I like the way you talk, my dear, about 'giving up!'
One doesn't give up the use of a spoon because one's reduced to living on broth.
And your spoon, that is your aunt, please consider, is partly mine as well."
She rose now, as if in sight of the term of her effort, in sight of the futility and the weariness of many things, and moved back to the poor little glass with which she had communed before.
She retouched here again the poise of her hat, and this brought to her father's lips another remark in which impatience, however, had already been replaced by a funny flare of appreciation.