Part 54

Poor Cora, for that matter too, might suddenly have become under this touch the prodigal with a list of debts. She seemed an instant to look out of a blurred office window-pane at a grey London sky; then she broke away. “I really don’t know what I want. I think,” she honestly admitted, “I just want kindness.”

Mrs. Gracedew’s expression might have hinted--but not for too long--that Bedford Row was an odd place to apply for it; she appeared for an instant to make the revolving office-chair creak. “What do you mean by kindness?”

Cora was a model client--she perfectly knew. “I mean help.”

Mrs. Gracedew closed an inkstand with a clap and locked a couple of drawers. “What do you mean by help?”

The client’s inevitable answer seemed to perch on the girl’s lips: “A thousand pounds.” But it came out in another, in a much more charming form. “I mean that I love him.”

The family solicitor got up: it was a high figure. “And does he love you?”

Cora hesitated. “Ask him.”

Mrs. Gracedew weighed the necessity. “Where is he?”

“Waiting.” And the girl’s glance, removed from her companion and wandering aloft and through space, gave the scale of his patience.

Her adviser, however, required the detail. “But where?”

Cora briefly demurred again. “In that funny old grotto.”

Mrs. Gracedew thought. “Funny?”

“Half-way from the park gate. It’s very nice!” Cora more eagerly added.

Mrs. Gracedew continued to reflect. “Oh, I know it!” She spoke as if she had known it most of her life.

Her tone encouraged her client. “Then will you see him?”

“No.” This time it was almost dry.

“No?”

“No. If you want help----” Mrs. Gracedew, still musing, explained.

“Yes?”

“Well--you want a great deal.”

“Oh, so much!”--Cora but too woefully took it in. “I want,” she quavered, “all there is!”

“Well--you shall have it.”

“All there is?”--she convulsively held her to it.

Mrs. Gracedew had finally mastered it. “I’ll see your father.”

“You dear, delicious lady!” Her young friend had again encompassed her; but, passive and preoccupied, she showed some of the chill of apprehension. It was indeed as if to meet this that Cora went earnestly on: “He’s intensely sympathetic!”

“Your father?” Mrs. Gracedew had her reserves.

“Oh, no--the other person. I so believe in him!” Cora cried.

Mrs. Gracedew looked at her a moment. “Then so do I--and I like him for believing in you.”