Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/80

66 "I don't in the least mind your laughing at me," Lord John returned, "for when I put him the question of the lift he'd give me by speaking to you first he bade me simply remember the complete personal liberty in which he leaves you, and yet which doesn't come—take my word!" said the young man sagely—"from his being at all indifferent."

"No," she answered—"father isn't indifferent. But father's 'great.'"

"Great indeed!"—her friend took it as with full comprehension. This appeared not to prevent, however, a second and more anxious thought. "Too great for you?"

"Well, he makes me feel—even as his daughter—my extreme comparative smallness."

It was easy, Lord John indicated, to see what she meant. "He's a grand seigneur, and a serious one—that's what he is: the very type and model of it, down to the ground. So you can imagine," said this observer, "what he makes me feel—most of all when he's so awfully good-natured to me. His being as 'great' as you say and yet backing me—such as I am!—doesn't that strike you as a good note for me, the best you could possibly