"And yet you have allowed him to come here day after day and practise with you? The ways of women are inscrutable," said Mr. Brooke, grimly, "and I can't profess to understand them. If you did not wish him to come, there was nothing to do but to close your doors against him." "I shall be only too glad," said Lesley, eagerly. "Oh--_now_? That is unnecessary: I shall do it myself," said her father, with the same dryness of tone that always made Lesley feel as if she were withering up to nothingness. "I don't think he is very likely to come," she said, in a very low tone. Then, with a quick impulse to clear herself, and an effort which brought the blood in a burning tide to her fair face, she went on, hurriedly--"Father, you don't think I forgot that he"--and then she almost broke down, and "Ethel" was the only word that struck distinctly upon his ear. "You mean," said Mr. Brooke, "that you do not forget that he is going to marry Ethel Kenyon? Perhaps not; but I think that _he_ does." "I am not to blame for that," said Lesley, with a flash of the hot temper that occasionally leaped to light when she was talking with her father. Brooke made no immediate answer. He took a match box from his pocket, struck a match, and began to light the wax candles on the mantelpiece--partly by way of finding something to do, partly because he thought that he should like to see his daughter's face. It was a very downcast face just then, but it was tinged with the hot flush of mingled pride and shame with which she had spoken, and never had it looked more lovely. The father considered it for a moment, less with admiration than with curiosity: this daughter of his was an unknown quantity: he never could predicate what she would do or say. Certainly she surprised him once more when she lifted her head, and said, quickly-- "I don't think I understand your English ways. I know what we should do at the convent; but I never know whether I am right or wrong here. And I have no one to ask." "There is your Aunt Sophy." "It is almost impossible to ask Aunt Sophy; she never sees where the difficulty lies. I know she is kind--but she does not understand what I want." Caspar nodded. "That is one reason why I spoke to you just now," he said, much more gently than usual. "I knew that she was a little brusque sometimes; and I suppose I am not much better. As a rule a father does not talk to his girls as I have been talking to you, I fancy. I am almost as ignorant of a father's duties to his daughter as you say you are of the habits of English bourgeois society--for I suppose that is what you mean?" He smiled a little--the slight smile of a satire which Lesley always dreaded; and yet, she remembered, his voice had been very kind. It softened again into its gentlest and most musical tones, as he said-- "You must take us as you find us, child: we shall not do you much harm, and it will not be for long."