human
I didn't write, darling, he said immediately,
gpt
Yes, Dad, quite sure,
human
Well, I knew you must be. I came to see that. Whatever I thought about it myself, it was for you to decide, and you weren't likely to have made a mistake, or to have gone into it lightly. I trust you absolutely, darling. I trust you in some things more than I do myself. If it's what you want, you must be right to want it. You'll have no trouble with me.
gpt
You've made me so happy, she said.
human
I don't know why I'm crying. I ought to be laughing.
gpt
Dearest child! he said tenderly.
human
You've been fearing that I should make a fuss, eh? Well, there's going to be a bit of a fuss, you know, Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary, and all the rest of them. They won't understand it all.
gpt
Do you understand it all, Dad? she asked.
human
Is that why you're so sweet about it?
gpt
Perhaps I don't understand it all, he said,
human
I shan't mind anything if you're on my side, darling Dad. I hoped you would be when I had seen you, but I didn't think you'd bring me such comfort as you have, just at first. It makes me love you more than ever, because you understand the best things in me.
gpt
Tell me about it, darling. We needn't talk about what the world will see, and criticise. You must have faced that. And--
human
Perhaps it would be better, she said,
gpt
Ah, that's the important thing, he said, and she knew that he understood her, and went on, with a pressure on the arm she was holding.
human
Yes, even if I had fallen in love--unless there was something deeper--I shouldn't have thought it right, and should have tried to get over it.
gpt
I think I'm rather a clever fellow, he said.
human
I've had to work it out all by myself, and I've worked it out right. You see, I know you, my Cara. I don't know him yet, though. So it wasn't easy.
gpt
It's lovely to feel one is so much trusted, she said.
human
But you were right to trust me, darling. No, I know it couldn't have been easy. I've had to do some thinking myself, so as to see how you'd take it. I knew you'd be dear and kind, but I couldn't expect you to see Maurice as I see him, now that I love him. _He_ thinks, you know, that I'm much above him. I'm not, in anything that matters. But in all the things that the world looks at--. That's what we're up against, isn't it, Dad?
gpt
We'll be up against it together, darling, and if I'm with you the others won't matter much. But it's true, you know, that I don't see him as you do, yet. You've got to help me.
human
I know. Well, darling, you've seen I have changed since we came to live here. When we had that ride, to breakfast with Mollie, we talked about it. You thought I was cutting myself off from something that was worth having. I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't, and I enquired into myself afterwards.
gpt
What did you discover? It's very important. You _will_ cut yourself off.
human
I discovered that I really didn't want any of it; not to make it matter. My happiness is in the quietest things I do, not in the other things. Even our big beautiful house, and the garden, and the way we live--that counted for a lot when we first came to live in the country. But it's not what counts most now. It's the country itself--nature, I suppose. I'm at home with it. There's something in me that responds. Well, Maurice is like that too; even more than I am, because his life has been simpler than mine. He is really big, Dad; big and simple and direct. There's been nothing to complicate his purpose. I've felt it about him all along. Now I love him, I know what it is that has brought me to him. I can look up to him, and I do.
gpt
Well, my boy!
human
Dad is on our side, Maurice,