Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 1.djvu/216

THE GOLDEN BOWL with a need of some basis on which, under these new lights, his bounty could be firm. "But has she told you nothing?"

"Ah thank goodness, no!"

He stared. "Then don't young women tell?"

"Because, you mean, it's just what they're supposed to do?" She looked at him, flushed again now; with which, after another hesitation, "Do young men tell?" she asked.

He gave a short laugh. "How do I know, my dear, what young men do?"

"Then how do I know, father, what vulgar girls do?"

"I see—I see," he quickly returned.

But she spoke the next moment as if she might, odiously, have been sharp. "What happens at least is that where there's a great deal of pride there's a great deal of silence. I don't know, I admit, what I should do if I were lonely and sore—for what sorrow, to speak of, have I ever had in my life? I don't know even if I'm proud—it seems to me the question has never come up for me."

"Oh I guess you're proud, Mag," her father cheerfully interposed. "I mean I guess you're proud enough."

"Well then I hope I'm humble enough too. I might at all events, for all I know, be abject under a blow. How can I tell? Do you realise, father, that I've never had the least blow?"

He gave her a long quiet look. "Who should realise if I don't?"

"Well, you'll realise when I have one!" she 186