Waring was not so indifferent to the looks or feelings of his daughter as appeared. After all, he was not entirely buried in his books. To Frances, who had grown up by his side without particularly attracting his attention, he had been kindly indifferent, not feeling any occasion to concern himself about the child, who always had managed to amuse herself, and never had made any call upon him. But Constance had come upon him as a stranger, as an individual with a character and faculties of her own, and it had not been without curiosity that he had watched her to see how she would reconcile herself with the new circumstances. Her absorption in the amusement provided for her by young Gaunt had somewhat revolted her father, who set it down as one of the usual exhibitions of love in idleness, which every one sees by times as he makes his way through the world. He had not interfered, being thoroughly convinced that interference is useless, in addition to that reluctance to do anything which had grown upon him in his recluse life. But since Gaunt had disappeared without a sign--save that of a little irritability, a little unusual gravity on the part of Constance--her father had been roused somewhat to ask what it meant. Had the young fellow “behaved badly,” as people say? Had he danced attendance upon her all this time only to leave her at the end? It did not seem possible, when he looked at Constance with her easy air of mastery, and thought of the shy, eager devotion of the young soldier and his impassioned looks. But yet he was aware that in such cases all prognostics failed, that the conqueror was sometimes conquered, and the intended victim remained master of the field. Waring observed his daughter more closely than ever on this evening. She was _distraite_, self-absorbed, a little impatient, sometimes not noting what he said to her, sometimes answering in an irritable tone. The replies she made to him when she did reply showed that her mind was running on other matters. She said abruptly, in the middle of a little account he was giving her, with the idea of amusing her, of one of the neighbouring mountain castles, “Do you know, papa, that everybody is going away?” Waring felt, with a certain discomfiture, which was comic, yet annoying, like one who has been suddenly pulled up with a good deal of “way” on him, and stops himself with difficulty--“a branch of the old Dorias,” he went on, having these words in his very mouth; and then, after a precipitate pause, “Eh? Oh, everybody is----? Yes, I know. They always do at this time of the year.” “It will be rather miserable, don’t you think, when every one is gone?” “My dear Constance, ‘every one’ means the Gaunts and Durants. I could not have supposed you cared.”