“And now, Dolly,” said her father, after a long pause, “tell me about Mr. Barry.”

“There is nothing more to be told.”

“Not of what you said to him, but of the reasons which have made you so determined.  Would it not be better for you to be married?”

“If I could choose my husband.”

“Whom would you choose?”

“You.”

“That is nonsense.  I am your father.”

“You know what I mean.  There is no one else among my circle of acquaintances with whom I should care to live.  There is no one else with whom I should care to do more than die.  When I look at it all round it seems to be absolutely impossible.  That I should on a sudden entertain habits of the closest intimacy with such a one as Mr. Barry!  What should I say to him when he went forth in the morning?  How should I welcome him when he came back at night?  What would be our breakfast, and what would be our dinner?  Think what are yours and mine,—­all the little solicitudes, all the free abuse, all the certainty of an affection which has grown through so many years; all the absolute assurance on the part of each that the one does really know the inner soul of the other.”

“It would come.”

“With Mr. Barry?  That is your idea of my soul with which you have been in communion for so many years?  In the first place, you think that I am a person likely to be able to transfer myself suddenly to the first man that comes my way?”

“Gradually you might do so,—­at any rate so as to make life possible.  You will be all alone.  Think what it will be to have to live all alone.”

“I have thought.  I do know that it would be well that you should be able to take me with you.”

“But I cannot.”

“No.  There is the hardship.  You must leave me, and I must be alone.  That is what we have to expect.  But for her sake, and for mine, we may be left while we can be left.  What would you be without me?  Think of that.”

“I should bear it.”

“You couldn’t.  You’d break your heart and die.  And if you can imagine my living there, and pouring out Mr. Barry’s tea for him, you must imagine also what I should have to say to myself about you.  ’He will die, of course.  But then he has come to that sort of age at which it doesn’t much signify.’  Then I should go on with Mr. Barry’s tea.  He’d come to kiss me when he went away, and I—­should plunge a knife into him.”

“Dolly!”

“Or into myself, which would be more likely.  Fancy that man calling me Dolly.”  Then she got up and stood behind his chair and put her arm round his neck.  “Would you like to kiss him?—­or any man, for the matter of that?  There is no one else to whom my fancy strays, but I think that I should murder them all,—­or commit suicide.  In the first place, I should want my husband to be a gentleman.  There are not a great many gentlemen about.”

“You are fastidious.”