"And what is to become of my business?"
Dolly did not dare give the answer that rose to her tongue, nor let her father know how much she knew. She came up on another side of the subject, and insisted that the consulate might be dispensed with. Mr.
Copley did not need the office and might well be tired of it by this time. Dolly pleaded, and her father heard her with a half embarrassed, half sullen face; feeling her affectionate entreaties more than was at all convenient, and conscious at the same time of a whole side of his life that he would be ashamed his daughter should know; and afraid of her guessing it. Alas, for father and child both, when such a state of things comes about!
"Come, father!" said Dolly at last, touching her forehead to his forehead in a sweet kind of caress,--"I want you."
"Suppose I find somebody else to go with you instead of me?"
"Nobody else will do. Come, father! Do come."
"You might set off with Lawrence," said Mr. Copley as if considering, "and I might join you afterwards; at Venice, perhaps, or Nice, or somewhere. Hey?"
"That won't do. I would not go with Mr. Lawrence."
"Why not?"
"Too much of an honour for him."
"You need not be afraid of showing him too much honour, for he is willing to give you the greatest man can give to a woman."
Dolly coloured again, and again touched her forehead to her father's forehead and sat so, leaning against him. Maybe with an instinct of hiding her cheeks.
"Father, let us go to Venice!" she began again, leaving Mr. St. Leger.
"Just think what fun it would be, to go all together. We have been living so long without you. I believe it would just make mother up.
Think of seeing Venice together, father!--and then maybe we would go on to Geneva and get a look at Mont Blanc."
"Geneva is a place for lovers," said Mr. Copley.
"Why?"
"Romantic."
"Can't anybody else be romantic, except that sort of people? I am romantic,--and I do not care a straw about anybody but mother and you."
"Don't tell Mr. St. Leger that."
"He might as well know it. Come, father! Say you'll go."
It was hard to withstand her. The pure, gentle intonations rang upon Mr. Copley's soul almost like bells of doom, because he did withstand her. She was his saving good angel; he half knew it; he was ashamed before his child, and conscience knocked hard at the door of his heart; but the very shame he felt before her made her presence irksome to him, while yet it was, oh, so sweet! Alas, "he that doeth evil hateth the light." He was entangled in more than one sort of net, and he lacked moral power to break the meshes. The gentle fingers that were busy with the net, trying to unloose it, were a reproach and a torment to him.
She _must_ marry St. Leger; so his thoughts ran; it was the best thing that could happen to her; it was the best he could do for her. Then she would be secure, at all events.
"Dolly, why don't you like Lawrence?" he began.
"He's too handsome, father,--for one thing."
"I never heard of such a reason for a lady's dislike. That's play, Dolly."
"And he knows it; there's another thing."
"Well, of course he knows it. How can he help knowing it?"
"And he's too rich."
"Dolly, you are talking nonsense."
"And he knows that."
"He doesn't know he's _too_ rich," said Mr. Copley, with a little bitterness. "No St. Leger ever did that."
"Well, father, that's what he is. Very handsome, and very rich. He is nothing else. He would suit some people admirably; but he don't suit me."
"What sort of thing would suit you?"
"A very perverse sort of a person, who is called Frank Collinshaw Copley."
"Well, you've got me," said her father, laughing a little at her. He could not help it. "You want something else besides."
"I don't, father, indeed."
"And, my child, money is necessary in this world. You cannot get along without money."
"Father, will you come to Venice? and we'll get along with very little money. Father, we _must_ go, for mother. The doctor says so, and she is just longing to go. We ought to go as soon as ever you can be ready."
"You show how much you know about it, when you talk of Venice and a _little_ money! You had better take Mr. St. Leger."
"Father, everybody says living is cheap in Switzerland."
"You talked of Venice."
"And Italy. The doctor says mother ought to stay some time at Nice, or Naples. Father, you can arrange it. Do! Give up the consulate, and let us take mother to Italy; and then home if you like. I don't much care, so that we have you." And again Dolly's forehead bent over to give a soft impact to her father's brown brow.
"Who did you come to town with?" he said suddenly. She told him.
"Well, now you had better go back with her, and I will see what I can do."
"You will go, father?"
"If I cannot immediately, I will send you and come on after."
"I cannot go without you, father. Oh, come, come!" And Dolly rained kisses upon his face, and stroked his forehead and cheeks, and was so entirely delicious in her tenderness and her sweetness, her love and her anxiety, that the heart of ordinary man could not stand it.
Anything else became more easy than to refuse her. So Mr. Copley said he would go; and received a new harvest of caresses in reward, not wholly characterised by the usual drought of harvest-time, for some drops of joy and thankfulness still came falling, a sunlit shower.
"Now, my child," said her father, "you had better go back to your good housekeeper, and then back to your mother, and get all things ready for a start."
"Father, I can stay here to-night, can't I?"
Mr. Copley was not sure that he wanted her; yet he could not refuse to make inquiry. There was no difficulty; plenty of room; and Dolly joyously prepared herself to gather in the fruits of her victory, through that following care and those measures of security for want of which many a victory has been won in vain. Mrs. Jersey had long since been informed that she need not wait, and had driven away. Dolly now sent for her portmanteau, and established herself in her father's sitting room.
Mr. Copley looked on, helplessly; half delighted, half bored. He would not have chosen to have Dolly there just then; yet being there she was one of the most lovely visions that a father's eye could rest upon.