"Well, you knew Lassigny. At one time I thought it was quite likely that he would propose for Caroline. You had seen him with her yourself constantly, and never made any objections to him. He had dined with you, and you even asked him down to Abington with us. One would have said that you would have welcomed it. I, at least, would never have supposed that you would treat it as if it were a thing quite out of the question." "Well, there _is_ something in all that, Katherine. But I suppose the fact is that a woman--especially a woman in the position you've been towards B--is always on the lookout for something to happen between a man and a girl who make friends. I can only tell you that I wasn't. I wouldn't have expected it to come on suddenly like that. I've known all about Caroline and her friendships. I suppose you know that Francis Parry wants to marry her. She told me all about it. She's told me about other proposals she's had. That seems to me the normal course with girls who can tell everything to their father, as mine can to me." She laughed at him quietly. "Caroline has never been in love," she said, "or anywhere near it. Of course she tells you everything, because she wants an excuse for not doing what she thinks perhaps she ought to do. She puts the responsibility on you. When she does fall in love you will very likely know nothing about it until she tells you just as B did." He laughed in his turn. "I know Caroline better than you do," he said. "And I thought B was like her. I'm very distressed about the way she's taking this, Katherine. She's a different child altogether. A day or two ago I thought she was beginning to get over it; but she mopes about and is getting thin. She doesn't want to go away either, though there are plenty of people who want her. And between her and me, instead of being what it always has been,--well, she's like a different person. I hardly know her. There has been no time in my life when things have gone so wrong--except when Margaret died. And until this happened we were enjoying ourselves more than ever. You saw how we'd got ourselves into the right sort of life when you came to Abington. It's all changed now." "Poor George!" she said. "You couldn't expect it to last quite like that at Abington, you know. You should have bought your country house ten years ago, when the girls were only growing up. You can't keep them there indefinitely. As for B, you can change all that trouble for yourself easily enough. I think, in spite of what you say, you must see that there was not a good enough reason for refusing Lassigny for her. Let it come on again and she'll be happy enough; and she'll be to you what she always has been."