"That's where I met you once," he said. "Do you remember? You were
coming out of the door as I went in."
"You seem to have been always meeting me."
"Always meeting you. And then---always missing you. Just when I
expected most to find you."
"If we go much farther in this direction," said Gwenda, "we shall meet
Papa."
"Well--I suppose some day I shall have to meet him. Do you realise
that I've never met him yet?"
"Haven't you?"
"No. Always I've been on the point of meeting him, and always some
malignant fate has interfered."
She smiled. He loved her smile.
"Why are you smiling?"
"I was only wondering whether the fate was really so malignant."
"You mean that if he met me he'd dislike me?"
"He always _has_ disliked anybody we like. You see, he's a very funny
father."
"All fathers," said Rowcliffe, "are more or less funny."
She laughed. Her laughter enchanted him.
"Yes. But _my_ father doesn't mean to be as funny as he is."
"I see. He wouldn't really mean to dislike me. Then, perhaps, if I
regularly laid myself out for it, by years of tender and untiring
devotion I might win him over?"
She laughed again; she laughed as youth laughs, for the pure joy of
laughter. She looked on her father as a persistent, delightful jest.
He adored her laughter.
It proved how strong and sane she was--if she could take him like
that. Rowcliffe had seen women made bitter, made morbid, driven into
lunatic asylums by fathers who were as funny as Mr.
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