Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/209



“What do you mean, Colonel Driscoll?” she asked, low and quickly.

“I mean, could you give me your daughter—if she—at any time—could think it possible?”

She drew a deep breath; the color seemed blown from her transparent skin like a flame from a lamp. For a moment her head seemed to droop; then she sat straight and moistened her lips, her eyes fixed level ahead.

“Lady?” she whispered, and he was sure that she thought the word was spoken in her ordinary tone. “Lady?”

“I know—I realize perfectly that it is a presumption in me—at my age—when I think of what she deserves. Oh, we won’t speak of it again if you feel that it would be wrong!”

“No, no, it is not that,” she murmured. “I—I have always known that I must lose her; but she—one is so selfish—she is all I have, you know!”

“But you would not lose her!” he