Mrs. Ambrose apologised for the interruption, and asked whether she might speak to him about a plan of hers.  Would he consent to leave his daughter with them when they landed, instead of taking her on up the Amazons?

“We would take great care of her,” she added, “and we should really like it.”

Willoughby looked very grave and carefully laid aside his papers.

“She’s a good girl,” he said at length.  “There is a likeness?”—­he nodded his head at the photograph of Theresa and sighed.  Helen looked at Theresa pursing up her lips before the Cockney photographer.  It suggested her in an absurd human way, and she felt an intense desire to share some joke.

“She’s the only thing that’s left to me,” sighed Willoughby.  “We go on year after year without talking about these things—­” He broke off.  “But it’s better so.  Only life’s very hard.”

Helen was sorry for him, and patted him on the shoulder, but she felt uncomfortable when her brother-in-law expressed his feelings, and took refuge in praising Rachel, and explaining why she thought her plan might be a good one.

“True,” said Willoughby when she had done.  “The social conditions are bound to be primitive.  I should be out a good deal.  I agreed because she wished it.  And of course I have complete confidence in you. . . .  You see, Helen,” he continued, becoming confidential, “I want to bring her up as her mother would have wished.  I don’t hold with these modern views—­any more than you do, eh?  She’s a nice quiet girl, devoted to her music—­a little less of that would do no harm.  Still, it’s kept her happy, and we lead a very quiet life at Richmond.  I should like her to begin to see more people.  I want to take her about with me when I get home.  I’ve half a mind to rent a house in London, leaving my sisters at Richmond, and take her to see one or two people who’d be kind to her for my sake.  I’m beginning to realise,” he continued, stretching himself out, “that all this is tending to Parliament, Helen.  It’s the only way to get things done as one wants them done.  I talked to Dalloway about it.  In that case, of course, I should want Rachel to be able to take more part in things.  A certain amount of entertaining would be necessary—­dinners, an occasional evening party.  One’s constituents like to be fed, I believe.  In all these ways Rachel could be of great help to me.  So,” he wound up, “I should be very glad, if we arrange this visit (which must be upon a business footing, mind), if you could see your way to helping my girl, bringing her out—­she’s a little shy now,—­making a woman of her, the kind of woman her mother would have liked her to be,” he ended, jerking his head at the photograph.

Willoughby’s selfishness, though consistent as Helen saw with real affection for his daughter, made her determined to have the girl to stay with her, even if she had to promise a complete course of instruction in the feminine graces.  She could not help laughing at the notion of it—­Rachel a Tory hostess!—­and marvelling as she left him at the astonishing ignorance of a father.