Her submissiveness touched him again. "I don't know, darling," he said. "I can't say anything till I've seen him. Don't ask me any more questions now. Look here, you'd better go round to Hans Place this morning and stay there to lunch. Aunt Mary's in London, I know. Go round early, so as you can catch her. I shall go straight to the station from the City. Meet me for the 4.50. I'll take your tickets." "But what about Rene?" she asked. "Aren't you going to let him see me, when you've talked to him?" He was in for it now. His tone was harder than he meant it to be as he said: "In any case, B, I'm not going to let him see you for six months. I've made up my mind about that. And there's to be no engagement either. He won't expect that. You must make yourself happy at home." "Daddy darling!" Her tone was one of pained and surprised expostulation. She seemed such a child as she looked at him out of her wide eyes that again he recoiled from hurting her. "Six months is nothing," he said. "If you can't wait six months, B----" He couldn't finish. It seemed mean to give her to understand that this would be his sole stipulation, when he was going to do all he could to stop her marrying Lassigny at all. But neither could he tell her that. She was silent for a time. Then she said with a deep sigh: "I was afraid you'd say something of the sort. You're a hard old Daddy. But I made up my mind coming down in the train that I wouldn't go against you. I love Rene so much that I don't mind waiting for him--if it isn't too long." Another little pause, and another deep sigh. "I've been frightfully happy the last two days. But somehow I didn't think it could last--quite like that." She saw him out of the house later on. As she put up her face to be kissed, she said: "You do love your little daughter, don't you? You won't do anything to make her unhappy." He walked to the end of Sloane Street and took a taxi. His mind was greatly disturbed. B had behaved beautifully. She had bowed to his decision with hardly a word of protest, and he knew well enough by the look on her face when she had asked him her last question what it had cost her to do so. It was impossible to take refuge in the thought that she couldn't love this fellow much, if she resigned herself so easily to doing without him for six months. She had resigned out of love for her father, and trust in him. It was beastly to feel that he had not yet told her everything, and that her faith in him not to make her unhappy--at least in the present--was unfounded. Again he felt himself undecided. But what could he do? How was it possible that she could judge of a man of Lassigny's type. Her love for him was pure and innocent. What was his love for her?