Only I think that before I was fifteen my way of
life was a sure and settled thing. It was certain that I should develop
upon the lines on which I was trained."
Garratt Skinner rose from his seat.
"There, I have done," he said. He looked at his daughter for a little
while, his eyes dwelling upon her beauty with a certain pleasure, and
even a certain wistfulness; he looked at her now much as she had been
wont to look at him in the early days of the house in Dorsetshire. It was
very plain that they were father and daughter.
"You are too good for your military man, my dear," he said, with a smile.
"Too pretty and too good. Don't you let him forget it!" And suddenly he
cried out with a burst of passion. "I wish to God you had never come near
me!" And Sylvia, hearing the cry, remembered that on the Sunday evening
when she had first come to the house in Hobart Place, her father had
shown a particular hesitation, had felt some of that remorse of which she
heard the full expression now, in welcoming her to his house and adapting
her to his ends. She raised her downcast eyes and with outstretched hands
took a step forward.
"Father!" she said. But her father was already gone. She heard his step
upon the stairs.
Chayne, however, followed her father from the room and caught him up as
he was leaving the hotel.
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