Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/79

Rh of such matters was of the dimmest), he desired to possess himself of it, and she sufficiently comprehended that money was needed for that. She further seemed to perceive that he presented himself to her as moneyless and that this brought them round by a vague but comfortable transition to a pleasant consciousness that her father was not. The remaining induction, silently made, was quick and happy: she should acquit herself by asking her father for the sum required and just passing it over to Mr. Flack. The greatness of his enterprise and the magnitude of his conceptions appeared to overshadow her as they stood there. This was a delightful simplification and it did not for a moment strike her as positively unnatural that her companion should have a delicacy about appealing to Mr. Dosson directly for pecuniary aid, though indeed she was capable of thinking that odd if she had meditated upon it. There was nothing simpler to Francie than the idea of putting her hand into her father's pocket, and she felt that even Delia would be glad to satisfy the young man by this casual gesture. I must add unfortunately that her alarm came back to her from the way in which he replied: "Do you mean to say you don't know, after all I've done?"

"I am sure I don't know what you've done."

"Haven't I tried—all I know—to make you like me?"