She came and stood beside me at the gate, without speaking; and my mind was so full of her, so intoxicated with the splendour of my imaginings, that I thought she must surely share my newfound certainty that we had met once more after an age of separation.  I waited, trembling, for her to begin.  I knew that any word of mine would inevitably precipitate the bathos of a civilised conversation.  I was incapable of expressing my own thought, but I hoped that she, with her magic voice, might accomplish a miracle that was beyond my feeble powers.  Indeed, I could imaginatively frame for her, speech that I could not, myself, deliver.  I knew what I wanted her to say—­or to imply.  For it was hardly necessary for her to say anything.  I was ready, wholly sympathetic and receptive.  If she would but give me the least sign that she understood, I could respond, though I was so unable to give any sign myself.

I came down from my clouds with a feeling of bitter disappointment, a sense of waking from perfect dreams to the realisation of a hard, inimical world, when she said in a formal voice.

“It’s after eleven.  My mother and father have gone to bed.”

“Is he—­is he in any way reconciled?” I asked, and I think I tried to convey something of resentment by my tone.  I still believed that she must guess.

“In a way,” she said, and sighed rather wearily.

“It must have been very hard for him to make up his mind so quickly—­to such a change,” I agreed politely.

“It was easier than I expected,” she said.  “He was so practical.  Just at first, of course, while Mr. Jervaise was there, he seemed broken.  I didn’t know what we should do.  I was almost afraid that he would refuse to come.  But afterwards he—­well, he squared his shoulders.  He is magnificent.  He’s as solid as a rock.  He didn’t once reproach us.  He seemed to have made up his mind; only one thing frightened him...”

“What was that?” I asked, as she paused.

“That we haven’t any capital to speak of,” she said.  “Even after we have sold the furniture here, we shan’t have more than five or six hundred pounds so far as we can make out.  And he says it isn’t enough.  He says that he and mother are too old to start again from small beginnings.  And—­oh! a heap of practical things.  He is so slow in some ways that it startled us all to find out how shrewd he was about this.  It was his own subject, you see.”

“There needn’t be any difficulty about capital,” I said eagerly.  I had hardly had patience for her to finish her speech.  From her first mention of that word “capital” I had seen my chance to claim a right in the Banks’s fortunes.

“I don’t see...” she began, and then checked herself and continued stiffly, “My father would never accept help of any kind.”

“Arthur might—­from a friend,” I said.

“He thinks we’ve got enough—­to begin with,” she replied.  “They’ve been arguing about it.  Arthur’s young and certain.  Father isn’t either, and he’s afraid of going to a strange country—­and failing.”