why I ve sent for you that you may see me as I
really am.

"Oh papa, it's long since I ve ceased to see you
otherwise than as you really are! I think we ve
all arrived by this time at the right word for that:
You re beautiful n en parlons plus. You re as
beautiful as ever you look lovely." He judged
meanwhile her own appearance, as she knew she
could always trust him to do; recognising, estimat
ing, sometimes disapproving, what she wore, show
ing her the interest he continued to take in her. He
might really take none at all, yet she virtually knew
herself the creature in the world to whom he was
least indifferent. She had often enough wondered
what on earth, at the pass he had reached, could
give him pleasure, and she had come back, on these
occasions, to that. It gave him pleasure that she
was handsome, that she was, in her way, a sensible
value. It was at least as marked, nevertheless, that
he derived none from similar conditions, so far as
they were similar, in his other child. Poor Marian
might be handsome, but he certainly didn't care.
The hitch here, of course, was that, with whatever
beauty, her sister, widowed and almost in want, with
four bouncing children, was not a sensible value.
She asked him, the next thing, how long he had been
in his actual quarters, though aware of how little
it mattered, Jaow little any answer he might make
would probably have in common with the truth.
She failed in fact to notice his answer, truthful or

[[10]]

p009 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p010w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p011

v?