Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/134

124 expectedly received. It was further revealed that that course presented difficulties, for he could not leave his daughters alone, especially in such a situation. Not only would such a proceeding have given scandal to the Proberts, but Gaston learned, with a good deal of surprise and not a little amusement, that Delia, in consequence of peculiar changes now wrought in her view of things, would have felt herself obliged to protest on the score of propriety. He called her attention to the fact that nothing would be more simple than, in the interval, for Francie to go and stay with Susan or Margaret; Delia herself in that case would be free to accompany her father. But this young lady declared that nothing would induce her to quit the European continent until she had seen her sister through, and Gaston shrank from proposing that she too should spend five weeks in the Place Beauvau or the Rue de Lille. Moreover he was startled, he was a good deal mystified, by the perverse, unsociable way in which Francie asserted that, as yet, she would not lend herself to any staying. After, if he liked, but not till then. And she would not at the moment give the reasons of her refusal; it was only very positive and even quite passionate.

All this left her intended no alternative but to say to Mr. Dosson, "I am not such a fool as I look. If you will coach me properly, and trust me, I will rush across and transact your business