“You seem to take the news rather badly, father,” said the girl.

Deringham smiled deprecatingly.  “I have not been quite so well lately, and it upset me a trifle,” said he.  “I have a regard for our Canadian kinsman and have been inclined to fancy that you shared it with me.”

“Of course,” said the girl indifferently.  “Mr. Alton has been especially kind to us.”

“Yes,” said Deringham.  “Mr. Seaforth must also be very helpless up there alone, with his comrade seriously ill.  Now there is no great necessity for my journey down the Sound, and I have no doubt that the business could be handled almost as well by letter.  I do not know that there is very much that would please you to be seen in the Washington townships either.”

Alice Deringham glanced at him thoughtfully.  “And?” she said.

Deringham glanced down a moment at his shoes.  “I was wondering if you could be of any use up there.”

His daughter laughed a little.  “I think that is readily answered.  I cannot cook, and neither can I wash, while I have never attended to a sick person in my life.”

“No,” said her father with a trace of embarrassment.  “Still, one understands that it comes naturally to women.  In any case your mere presence would in a fashion be an advantage.”

Alice Deringham watched him in silence for a few seconds and then smiled again.  “It is somewhat difficult to believe it.  I am sincerely sorry for Mr. Alton, but I can see no reason for intruding at Somasco now.”

Deringham regarded her steadily, and the girl knew it would be advisable for her to yield.  This did not displease her, for, though she had negatived his suggestion, her father’s wishes coincided with her own.  She, however, desired to visit Somasco as it were under compulsion, and to feel that she had not done so of her own inclination.

“I think there is a reason—­and it would please me,” he said.

“Then I should be pleased to hear it.”

Deringham appeared to consider, because the motives which influenced him were ones he could not well reveal.  “We are his only relatives in this country—­and there is the look of the thing,” he said.

The girl moved a little, and her father watching her noticed her fine symmetry, and how her red-gold hair gleamed against the white panelling.  It was possibly because of this background he also noticed the faint flicker of warmth that crept into her face and neck, and that there was a glow in her eyes he had not seen there previously.

“That,” she said with a cold distinctness, “is precisely what I object to.”

Deringham laughed a little.  “I think that aspect of the question will not be evident to Alton.”

“No?” said the girl, while the tinge of colour deepened a little.  “Still, it is very plain to me.”

Deringham said nothing, and the two sat still while the voice of the man dictating jarred upon one of them.  “Very little interest taken in mineral claims, no inquiries for ranching properties.”