“Well, you see, I haven’t known other people’s fathers at all, and up to quite lately I didn’t think there was anything peculiar about mine, but just lately I’ve been wondering. You see there’s never been any particular affection, there hasn’t been any question of affection, and that’s,” she stopped for a moment, “that’s what I’ve been wanting. I used to make advances when I was quite tiny, climb on his knee, and sometimes he would play, oh! beautifully! and then suddenly he would stop and push me aside, or behave, perhaps, as though I were not there at all.” “Brute!” said Tony between his teeth, driving the oar furiously through the water. “And then I began to see gradually that he didn’t care at all. It was easy enough even for a girl as young as I was to understand, and yet he would sometimes be so affectionate.” She broke off. “I think,” she said, looking steadily out to sea, “that he would have liked to have killed me sometimes. He is so furious at times that he doesn’t in the least know what he’s doing.” “What did you do when he was like that?” asked Tony in a very low voice. “Oh, one waits,” she said very quietly, “they don’t last long.” She spoke dispassionately, as though she were outside the case altogether, but Tony felt that if he had Morelli there, in the boat with him, he would know what to do and say. “You must get away,” he said. “There are other things about him,” she went on, “that I’ve noticed that other people’s fathers don’t do. He’s wonderful with animals, and yet he doesn’t seem really to care about them, or, at least, he only cares whilst they are in certain moods. And although they come to him so readily I often think that they are really afraid as I am.” She began to think as she sat there. She had never spoken about it all to anyone before, and so it had never, as it were, materialised. She had never realised until now how badly she had wanted to talk to some one about it. “Oh, you have been so fortunate,” she said, a little wistfully, “to have done so many things and seen so many people. Tell me about other girls, are they all beautiful? Do they dress beautifully?” “No,” he said, looking at her. “They are very tiresome. I can’t be serious with girls as a rule. That’s why I like to be with you. You don’t mind a fellow being serious. Girls seem to think a man isn’t ever meant to drop his grin, and it gets jolly tiresome. Because, you know, life is awfully serious when you come to think about it. I’ve only realised,” he hesitated a moment, “during this last fortnight how wonderful it is. That’s, you know,” he went on hurriedly, “why I really like to be with men better. Now a fellow like Maradick understands what one’s feeling, he’s been through it, he’s older, and he knows. But then you understand too; it’s jolly funny how well you understand a chap.”