At the same time, she had not the slightest
guide as to her father's attitude. Falk's name had not been mentioned in
the house during these last weeks, and, although she realised that a new
relationship was springing up between herself and her father, she was
still shy of him and conscious of a deep gulf between them. She had, too,
her own troubles, and, try as she might to beat them under, they came up
again and again, confronting her and demanding that she should answer
them.
Now she put the whole of that aside and concentrated on her father.
Watching him during dinner, he seemed to her suddenly to have become
older; there was a glow in her heart as she thought that at last he really
needed her. After all, if through life she were destined to be an old
maid--and that, in the tragic moment of her youth that was now upon her,
seemed her inevitable destiny--here was some one for whom at last she
could care.
She had felt before she came down to dinner that she was old and ugly and
desperately unattractive. Across the dinner-table she flung away, as she
imagined for ever, all hopes for beauty and charm; she would love her
father and he should love her, and every other man in the world might
vanish for all that she cared.
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