liot, "or shall I?"

"Neither. I shall get Dad to. He'll do it best."

vii

Robert Fielding didn't do it all at once. He put it off till Adeline
gave him his chance. He found her alone in the library and she had begun
it.

"Robert, I don't know what to do about that child."

"Which child?"

"Anne. She's been here five weeks, and I've done everything I know, and
she hasn't shown me a scrap of affection. It's pretty hard if I'm to
house and feed the little thing and look after her like a mother and get
nothing. Nothing but half a cold little face to kiss night and morning.
It isn't good enough."

"For Anne?"

"For me, my dear. Trying to be a mother to somebody else's child who
doesn't love you, and isn't going to love you."

"Don't try then."

"Don't try?"

"Don't try and be a mother to her. That's what Anne doesn't like."

They had got as far as that when John Severn stood in the doorway. He
was retreating before their appearance of communion when she called him
back.

"Don't go, John. We want you. Here's Robert telling me not to be a
mother to Anne."

"And here's Adeline worrying because she thinks Anne isn't going to love
her."

Severn sat down, considering it.

"It takes time," he said.

She looked at him, smiling under lowered brows.

"Time to love me?"

"Time for Anne to love you. She--she's so desperately faithful."

The dressing-bell clanged from the belfry. Robert left them to finish a
discussion that he found embarrassing.

"I said I'd try to be a mother to her. I _have_ tried, John; but the
little thing won't let me."

"Don't try too hard. Robert's right. Don't--don't be a mother to her."

"What am I to be?"

"Oh, anything you like. A presence. A heavenly apparition. An impossible
ideal. Anything but that."

"Do you think she's going to hold out for ever?"

"Only against that. As long as she remembers. It puts her off."

"She doesn't object to Robert being a father to her."

"No. Because he's a better father than I am; and she knows it."

Adeline flushed. She understood the implication and was hurt,
unreasonably. He saw her unreasonableness and her pain.

"My dear Adeline, Anne's mother will always be Anne's mother. I was
never anywhere beside Alice. I've had to choose between the Government
of India and my daughter. You'll observe that I don't try to be a father
to Anne; and that, in consequence, Anne likes me. But she'll _love_
Robert."

"And 'like' me? If I don't