"Thank you once more," she said, hurriedly, before he had time to go on. "I know I can count on your help; and if I require a good word, I shall not hesitate to ask you for it."
As she slipped away, Pruyn was left with the uncomfortable sense of having appeared to a disadvantage. He had been stilted and patronizing, when he had meant to be cordial and kind. On the other hand, he resented the quickness with which she had read his thoughts, as well as her perception that he had ground for uneasiness regarding his child. That she should penetrate the inner shrine of reserve he kept closed against those who stood nearest to him in the world gave him a sense of injury; and he turned this feeling to account during the next few hours in trying to deaden the echo of the French voice with the Irish intonation that haunted his inner hearing, as well as to banish the memory of the plaintive smile in which, as he feared, meekness was blended with amusement at his expense.
If the secret spring worked by James van Tromp had been an active agency in bringing Diane and Derek Pruyn once more together, as well as in creating the intimacy that sprang up during the next two months between Miss Lucilla and the elder Mrs. Eveleth, it had certainly nothing to do with the South American complications in the business of Van Tromp & Co., which made Pruyn's departure for Rio de Janeiro a possibility of the near future. He had long foreseen that he would be obliged to make the journey sooner or later, but that he should have to do it just now was particularly inconvenient. There was but one aspect in which the expedition might prove a blessing in disguise--he might take Dorothea with him.
During the six or eight weeks following the afternoon at Mrs. Wappinger's he had bestowed upon Dorothea no small measure of attention, obtaining much the same result as a mastiff might gain from his investigation of the ways of a bird of paradise. He informed himself as to her diversions and her dancing-classes, making the discovery that what other girls' mothers did for them, Dorothea was doing for herself. As far as he could see, she was bringing herself up with the aid of a chosen band of eligible, well-conducted young men, varying in age from nineteen to twenty-two, whom she was training as a sort of body-guard against the day of her "coming out." On the occasions when he had opportunities for observation he noted the skill with which she managed them, as well as the chivalry with which they treated her; and yet there was in the situation an indefinable element that displeased him. It was something of a shock to learn that the flower he thought he was cultivating in secluded sweetness under glass had taken root of its own accord in the midst of young New York's great, gay parterre. Aware of the possibilities of this soil to produce over-stimulated growth, he could think of nothing better than to pluck it up and, temporarily at least, transplant it elsewhere. Having come to the decision overnight, he made the proposition when they met at breakfast in the morning.