“I don’t quite like the sound of it,” said Miss Benham.  “Perhaps I am rather ambitious—­I don’t know.  Yes, perhaps.  I should like to play some part in the world, I don’t deny that.  But—­am I as cold as you say?  I doubt it very much.  I doubt that.”

“You’re twenty-two,” said her grandfather, “and you have seen a good deal of society in several capitals.  Have you ever fallen in love?”

Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham’s eyes as if she had summoned it there.  But she frowned a little and shook her head, saying: 

“No, I can’t say that I have.  But that means nothing.  There’s plenty of time for that.  And you know,” she said, after a pause—­“you know I’m rather sure I could fall in love—­pretty hard.  I’m sure of that.  Perhaps I have been waiting.  Who knows?”

“Aye, who knows?” said David.  He seemed all at once to lose interest in the subject, as old people often do without apparent reason, for he remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long black cigar or rolling it absently between his fingers.  After awhile he laid it down in a metal dish which stood at his elbow, and folded his lean hands before him over the invalid’s table.  He was still so long that at last his granddaughter thought he had fallen asleep, and she began to rise from her seat, taking care to make no noise; but at that the old man stirred and put out his hand once more for the cigar.  “Was young Richard Hartley at your dinner-party?” he asked, and she said: 

“Yes.  Oh yes, he was there.  He and M. Ste. Marie came together, I believe.  They are very close friends.”

“Another idler,” growled old David.  “The fellow’s a man of parts—­and a man of family.  What’s he idling about here for?  Why isn’t he in Parliament, where he belongs?”

“Well,” said the girl, “I should think it is because he is too much a man of family—­as you put it.  You see, he’ll succeed his cousin, Lord Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would have been for nothing, because he’ll have to take his seat in the Lords.  Lord Risdale is unmarried, you know, and a hopeless invalid.  He may die any day.  I think I sympathize with poor Mr. Hartley.  It would be a pity to build up a career for one’s self in the lower House, and then suddenly, in the midst of it, have to give it all up.  The situation is rather paralyzing to endeavor, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I dare say,” said old David, absently.  He looked up sharply.  “Young Hartley doesn’t come here as much as he used to do.”

“No,” said Miss Benham, “he doesn’t.”  She gave a little laugh.  “To avoid cross-examination,” she said, “I may as well admit that he asked me to marry him and I had to refuse.  I’m sorry, because I like him very much, indeed.”

Old David made an inarticulate sound which may have been meant to express surprise—­or almost anything else.  He had not a great range of expression.