There was more of the dead mother in this last daughter than in either of the elder sisters; she had her mother's gift of insight and understanding. This was not the first time of many that she had crept downstairs after the household was in bed, to play David to his Saul, and to-night, as he turned his eyes to the doorway and recognised her slight figure, it was not surprise which he felt, but rather a shamed and uneasy embarrassment. "Margot! It's very late! Why are you not in bed?" She shut the door and crossed the room to his side. "I wanted to talk to you!" "To remonstrate, I suppose, for what I said at supper! You and Ron are angry, no doubt, and feel yourselves badly used. You have come to fight his battles, as usual." "No. I don't want to fight at all. Just to talk to you a little while, and say I'm sorry." She seated herself on the arm of his chair as she spoke, and leant her shoulder carelessly against his; but he edged away, still sore and suspicious. "Sorry for what?" "For you! Because _you're_ sorry. Because I knew you'd be sitting alone, doing nothing else but being sorry. So I came down to put my arms round your dear old neck, and kiss your dear old head, and tell you that I love you. Badly!" Yes! Margot understood. In just such pretty simple words would his own Margaret have chased away the black spirit years ago. Mr Vane puffed at his pipe, staring fixedly across the room, to conceal the sudden moistening of his eyes, but his figure sank back into its old place, no longer repulsing the caress. "It's a hard task for a lonely man to manage a family of children. He gets all the kicks, and none of the thanks!" "That's exaggeration, dear--which you are always protesting against in others. We are tiresome and self-willed, but we know very well how much we owe to you, and your care for us. It hurts us as much as it hurts you when we disagree; but we've got to live our own lives, father!" "And you imagine that you know better how to set about it than a man who has lived more than twice as long, and has had ten times the experience?" Margot hesitated. "In a way--no; in a way--_yes_! We know ourselves, daddy, as even you cannot do, and it is impossible for one person, however kind and wise he may be, to lay down the law as to what is to be the object of other lives. We all have our own ambitions; what could satisfy one, would leave another empty and aching. Agnes, for instance, and me! How different we are! Her idea of happiness would be a house worked by machinery, where every hour the same things happened at precisely the same moment, and there were never any cataracts and breaks, and nobody ever came down late to breakfast. _I_ should like to have breakfast in bed, and a new excitement every single day! We are not all cut out of one pattern, and we are not children any longer, dear. Sometimes you forget that. When _you_ were twenty-three, you were married, and had a home of your own."