He
has dispensed with my services for the future. When I go home, I am
going back to my own people."
Littleson was genuinely sorry. To a certain extent he felt that this was
his fault.
"That's just like Phineas," he said. "Hard as nails, and without a
dime's worth of consideration. I don't see how you could help what
happened. You gave nothing up voluntarily. You told nobody anything."
"My uncle," Virginia said, "judges only by results. After all, it is the
only infallible way. I am going to read a little now. Do you mind?
Talking makes my head ache."
He bowed and went his way. For an hour or more he paced up and down on
the other side of the deck, thinking. It was, of course, impossible that
this child should have come across with the hope of wresting from Norris
Vine the paper which all their offers and eloquence had failed to entice
him to give up. And yet he did not understand her journey. He knew very
well that Phineas Duge had neither connections nor relatives in England.
Only a few weeks ago, in talking to Virginia at dinner-time, she had
told him that she had no hope, at present at any rate, of visiting
Europe. Later in the day he sent a marconigram back to New York.
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