She came to the last page of her book, and, drumming with her little fingers on the cover, she raised her eyes in a half-dreaming fashion.
Mr. Paget had dropped his sheet of the _Times_--his hand had fallen back in the old leathern armchair--his eyes were closed--he was fast asleep.
In his sleep this astute and careful and keen man of business dropped his mask--the smiling smooth face showed wrinkles, the gay expression was succeeded by a careworn look--lines of sadness were about the mouth, and deep crow's-feet wrinkled and aged the expression round the eyes.
The mantle of care had never yet touched Valentine. For the first time in all her life a pang of keen mental pain went through her as she gazed at her sleeping father. For the first time in her young existence the awful possibility stared her in the face that some time she might have to live in a cold and dreary world without him.
"Why, my father looks quite old," she half stammered. "Old, and--yes, unhappy. What does it mean?"
She rose very gently, moved her chair until it touched his, and then nestling up close to him laid her soft little hand on his shoulder.
Paget slept on, and the immediate contact of Valentine's warm, loving presence, made itself felt in his dreams--his wrinkles disappeared, and his handsome lips again half smiled. Val laid her hand on his--she noticed the altered expression, and her slightly roused fears slumbered. There was no one to her like her father. She had made a mistake just then in imagining that he looked old and unhappy. No people in all the world were happier than he and she. He was not old--he was the personification in her eyes of all that was manly and strong and beautiful.
The tired man slept on, and the girl, all her fears at rest, began idly to review the events of the past day. There had been gay doings during that long summer's afternoon, and Valentine, in the prettiest of summer costumes, had thoroughly enjoyed her life. She had spent some hours at Lords, and had entered with zest into the interest of the Oxford and Cambridge Cricket Match. She lay back in her chair now with her eyes half closed, reviewing in a lazy fashion the events of the bygone hours. A stalwart and very attractive young man in cricketing flannels mingled in these dreams. He spoke to her with strength and decision. His dark eyes looked keenly into her face, he never expressed the smallest admiration for her either by look or gesture, but at the same time he had a way of taking possession of her which roused her interest, and which secured her approbation. She laughed softly to herself now at some of the idle nothings said to her by Adrian Carr, and she never once gave a thought to Wyndham, who had also been at Lords.
