what I think of you, what you have been to me all these years . . . all that Anson has never been . . . nor my own sister, Cassie." He leaned across the table, touching her white hand gently. "You will, Olivia?"
It was impossible to refuse, impossible even to protest any further, impossible to say that in this very moment she wanted only to run away, to escape, to leave them all forever, now that Sybil was safe. Looking away, she said in a low voice, "Yes."
It was impossible to desert him now . . . an old, tired man. The bond between them was too strong; it had existed for too long, since that first day she had come to Pentlands as Anson's bride and known that it was the father and not the son whom she respected. In a way, he had imposed upon her something of his own rugged, patriarchal strength. It seemed to her that she had been caught when she meant most to escape; and she was frightened, too, by the echoing thought that perhaps she had become, after all, a Pentland . . . hard, cautious, unadventurous and a little bitter, one for whom there was no fire or glamour in life, one who worshiped a harsh, changeable, invisible goddess called Duty. She kept thinking of Sabine's bitter remark about "the lower middle-class virtues of the Pentlands" . . . the lack of fire, the lack of splendor, of gallantry. And yet this fierce old man was gallant, in an odd fashion. . . . Even Sabine knew that.
He was talking again. "It's not only money that's been left to you. . . . There's Sybil, who's still too young to be let free. . . ."
"No," said Olivia with a quiet stubbornness, "she's not too young. She's to do as she pleases. I've tried to make her wiser than I was at her age . . . perhaps wiser than I've ever been . . . even now."
"Perhaps you're right, my dear. You have been so many
