"But you must sit down, Juliet.
There, you shall have my clients' chair."
The girl accepted it with a little laugh. There was no shadow of
embarrassment about her manner, notwithstanding the cold stiffness of
Wingrave's deportment. He sat where the sunlight fell across his
chair, and the lines in his pale face seemed deeper than usual, the
grey hairs more plentiful, the weariness in his eyes more apparent.
Yet she was not in the least afraid of him.
"First of all, then, Sir Wingrave, may I ask you why you have been so
extraordinarily kind to me?"
"There is nothing extraordinary about it at all," he answered. "Your
father died and left you friendless in a parish of which I am Lord of
the Manor. He received a starvation pittance for his labors, which it
was my duty to augment, a duty which, with many others, I neglected. I
simply gave orders that you should be looked after."
She laughed softly.
"Looked after! Why, I have lived at Tredowen. I have had a governess,
a pony to drive. Heaven knows how many luxuries!"
"That," he interrupted hastily, "is nothing. The house is better
occupied. What I have done for you is less in proportion than the
sixpence you may sometimes have given to a beggar for I am a rich, a
ridiculously rich man, with no possible chance of spending one-quarter
of my income. You had a distinct and obvious claim upon me, and, at no
cost or inconvenience to myself, I have endeavored, through others, to
recognize it.
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