"Perhaps it would be better," she said, "if I tell you how I have faced it, so as to get it out of the way, between you and me, Dad. We have talked about marriage together, and I know what your views are. Mine were much the same, before I knew I loved Maurice. I suppose that was why I didn't know that I did love him. Until it came to me, I shouldn't have thought of marrying anybody that Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary wouldn't think it suitable that I should marry--somebody with an established position, who had lived in the world that they belong to. I think even if I had found myself to have fallen in love--" She hesitated. "Ah, that's the important thing," he said, and she knew that he understood her, and went on, with a pressure on the arm she was holding. "Yes, even if I had fallen in love--unless there was something deeper--I shouldn't have thought it right, and should have tried to get over it." He kissed her, and laughed. "I think I'm rather a clever fellow," he said. "I've had to work it out all by myself, and I've worked it out right. You see, I know you, my Cara. I don't know him yet, though. So it wasn't easy." She pressed closer to him. "It's lovely to feel one is so much trusted," she said. "But you were right to trust me, darling. No, I know it couldn't have been easy. I've had to do some thinking myself, so as to see how you'd take it. I knew you'd be dear and kind, but I couldn't expect you to see Maurice as I see him, now that I love him. _He_ thinks, you know, that I'm much above him. I'm not, in anything that matters. But in all the things that the world looks at--. That's what we're up against, isn't it, Dad?" "We'll be up against it together, darling, and if I'm with you the others won't matter much. But it's true, you know, that I don't see him as you do, yet. You've got to help me." "I know. Well, darling, you've seen I have changed since we came to live here. When we had that ride, to breakfast with Mollie, we talked about it. You thought I was cutting myself off from something that was worth having. I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't, and I enquired into myself afterwards." "What did you discover? It's very important. You _will_ cut yourself off." "I discovered that I really didn't want any of it; not to make it matter. My happiness is in the quietest things I do, not in the other things. Even our big beautiful house, and the garden, and the way we live--that counted for a lot when we first came to live in the country. But it's not what counts most now. It's the country itself--nature, I suppose. I'm at home with it. There's something in me that responds. Well, Maurice is like that too; even more than I am, because his life has been simpler than mine. He is really big, Dad; big and simple and direct. There's been nothing to complicate his purpose. I've felt it about him all along. Now I love him, I know what it is that has brought me to him. I can look up to him, and I do."