dust.  What was the good of it all?  What comfort was there in a God so great and universal that he did not care to keep her and Derek alive and loving forever, and was not interested enough to see that the poor old cab-driver should not be haunted day and night with fear of the workhouse for himself and an old wife, perhaps?  Nedda’s tears fell fast, and how far this was Chardonnet no one could tell.

Felix, seeking inspiration from the sky in regard to ’The Last of the Laborers,’ heard a noise like sobbing, and, searching, found his little daughter sitting there and crying as if her heart would break.  The sight was so unusual and so utterly disturbing that he stood rooted, quite unable to bring her help.  Should he sneak away?  Should he go for Flora?  What should he do?  Like many men whose work keeps them centred within themselves, he instinctively avoided everything likely to pain or trouble him; for this reason, when anything did penetrate those mechanical defences he became almost strangely tender.  Loath, for example, to believe that any one was ill, if once convinced of it, he made so good a nurse that Flora, at any rate, was in the habit of getting well with suspicious alacrity.  Thoroughly moved now, he sat down on the bench beside Nedda, and said: 

“My darling!”

She leaned her forehead against his arm and sobbed the more.

Felix waited, patting her far shoulder gently.

He had often dealt with such situations in his books, and now that one had come true was completely at a loss.  He could not even begin to remember what was usually said or done, and he only made little soothing noises.

To Nedda this tenderness brought a sudden sharp sense of guilt and yearning.  She began: 

“It’s not because of that I’m crying, Dad, but I want you to know that Derek and I are in love.”

The words:  ‘You!  What!  In those few days!’ rose, and got as far as Felix’s teeth; he swallowed them and went on patting her shoulder.  Nedda in love!  He felt blank and ashy.  That special feeling of owning her more than any one else, which was so warming and delightful, so really precious—­it would be gone!  What right had she to take it from him, thus, without warning!  Then he remembered how odious he had always said the elderly were, to spoke the wheels of youth, and managed to murmur: 

“Good luck to you, my pretty!”

He said it, conscious that a father ought to be saying: 

‘You’re much too young, and he’s your cousin!’ But what a father ought to say appeared to him just then both sensible and ridiculous.  Nedda rubbed her cheek against his hand.

“It won’t make any difference, Dad, I promise you!”

And Felix thought:  ‘Not to you, only to me!’ But he said: 

“Not a scrap, my love!  What were you crying about?”

“About the world; it seems so heartless.”