Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/207

Rh "Assuredly—for some better satisfaction than your just moping here without a sign!"

"But a sign of what, father?" she asked—as helpless as a lone islander scanning the horizon for a sail.

"Of your appreciating, of your in some degree dutifully considering, the predicament into which you've put me!"

"Hasn't it occurred to you in the least that you've rather put me into one?"

He threw back his head as from exasperated nerves. "I put you certainly in the predicament of your receiving by my care a handsome settlement in life—which all the elements that would make for your enjoying it had every appearance of successfully commending to you." The perfect readiness of which on his lips had, like a higher wave, the virtue of lifting and dropping him to still more tangible ground. "And if I understand you aright as wishing to know whether I apologise for that zeal, why you take a most preposterous view of our relation as father and daughter."

"You understand me no better than I fear I understand you," Lady Grace returned, "if what you expect of me is really to take back