How ardently she had longed for home a few weeks ago, when she was counting the days that must pass before the appointed date of her return, under the wing of Madame Tolmache, who crossed the Channel reluctantly once or twice a year to escort pupils, and was prostrate in the cabin throughout the brief sea-passage, leaving the pupils to take care of themselves, and so horribly ill on landing that the pupils had to take care of her. So long as South Hill was in the future Daphne had believed that perfect happiness awaited her there—gladness without a flaw—but now that she was at home, established, a recognised member of the family for all her life to come, she began to discover that even at South Hill life was not perfect happiness. She was devotedly fond of Madoline, and Madoline was full of affection—careful, anxious, almost maternal love—for her. There was no flaw in her gladness here. But every hour she spent in her father’s company made her more certain of the one painful fact that he did not care for her. There was even in her mind the terrible suspicion that he actually disliked her; that he would have been glad to have her out of his way—married, dead and buried—anything so that she might be removed from his path. She was very young, and her spirits had all the buoyancy of youth that has never been acquainted with sordid cares. So there was plenty of gladness in her life. It was only now and then that the thought of her father’s indifference, or possible dislike, drifted like a passing cloud across her mind, and took the charm out of everything. ‘What a lovely place it is!’ she said to Madoline, one evening after dinner, when they were strolling about the lawn, where three of the finest deodaras in the county rose like green towers against the warm western sky; ‘I am fonder of it every day, yet I can’t help feeling that I’m an interloper.’ ‘Daphne! You—the daughter of the house!’ ‘A daughter; not the daughter,’ answered Daphne. ‘Sometimes I fancy that I am a daughter too many. You should have heard how MacCloskie talked to me yesterday because I had taken Bink from his work for an hour or two. If I had been a poor little underpaid nursery governess he couldn’t have scolded me more severely. And I think servants have a knack of finding out their master’s feelings. If I had been a favourite with my father, MacCloskie would never have talked like that. A favourite! What nonsense! It is so obvious that I bore him awfully.’ ‘Daphne, if you are going to nurse this kind of fancy you will never be happy,’ Madoline said earnestly, winding her arm round her sister, as they sauntered slowly down the sloping lawn, side by side. ‘You must make every allowance for papa; he is not a demonstrative man. His manner may seem cold, perhaps—’ ‘Cold!’ cried Daphne; ‘it is ice. I feel I have entered the frigid zone directly I go into his presence. But he is not cold to you; he has love enough, and to spare, for you.’