Pierson sat down, a little hypnotized by the sleepy strumming, the slow giddy movement of the dancers, and those half-closed swimming eyes of his young daughter, looking at him over her shoulder as she went by.  He sat with a smile on his lips.  Nollie was growing up!  Now that Gratian was married, she had become a great responsibility.  If only his dear wife had lived!  The smile faded from his lips; he looked suddenly very tired.  The struggle, physical and spiritual, he had been through, these fifteen years, sometimes weighed him almost to the ground:  Most men would have married again, but he had always felt it would be sacrilege.  Real unions were for ever, even though the Church permitted remarriage.

He watched his young daughter with a mixture of aesthetic pleasure and perplexity.  Could this be good for her?  To go on dancing indefinitely with one young man could that possibly be good for her?  But they looked very happy; and there was so much in young creatures that he did not understand.  Noel, so affectionate, and dreamy, seemed sometimes possessed of a little devil.  Edward Pierson was naif; attributed those outbursts of demonic possession to the loss of her mother when she was such a mite; Gratian, but two years older, had never taken a mother’s place.  That had been left to himself, and he was more or less conscious of failure.

He sat there looking up at her with a sort of whimsical distress.  And, suddenly, in that dainty voice of hers, which seemed to spurn each word a little, she said: 

“I’m going to stop!” and, sitting down beside him, took up his hat to fan herself.

Eve struck a triumphant chord.  “Hurrah I’ve won!”

The young man muttered: 

“I say, Noel, we weren’t half done!”

“I know; but Daddy was getting bored, weren’t you, dear?  This is Cyril Morland.”

Pierson shook the young man’s hand.

“Daddy, your nose is burnt!”

“My dear; I know.”

“I can give you some white stuff for it.  You have to sleep with it on all night.  Uncle and Auntie both use it.”

“Nollie!”

“Well, Eve says so.  If you’re going to bathe, Cyril, look out for that current!”

The young man, gazing at her with undisguised adoration, muttered: 

“Rather!” and went out.

Noel’s eyes lingered after him; Eve broke a silence.

“If you’re going to have a bath before tea, Nollie, you’d better hurry up.”

“All right.  Was it jolly in the Abbey, Daddy?”

“Lovely; like a great piece of music.”

“Daddy always puts everything into music.  You ought to see it by moonlight; it’s gorgeous then.  All right, Eve; I’m coming.”  But she did not get up, and when Eve was gone, cuddled her arm through her father’s and murmured: 

“What d’you think of Cyril?”

“My dear, how can I tell?  He seems a nice-looking young man.”