Daisy in the Field Part 38

"She wants you there too, Daisy, I much suspect; not to speak of me."

"What better time can we ever have, papa?"

"I do not know. I am afraid your mother would say any other would be better."

"Papa, I cannot tell you how glad I should be to go now."

"Why, Daisy?" said papa, looking at me. "To my certain knowledge, there are several people who will be desolate if you quit Florence at this time - several besides your mother."

"Papa, - that is the very reason why I should like to go - before it becomes serious."

Papa became serious immediately. He lifted my face to look at it, flushed as I suppose it was; and kissed me, with a smile which did not in the least belie the seriousness.

"If we go to Paris, Daisy? - we should leave your enemies behind."

"No papa - two of them are going to Paris when we go."

"That _is_ serious," said my father. "After all, why not, Daisy?"

"Oh, papa, let us get away while it is time!" I said. "Mamma was so displeased with me because of Mr. De Saussure and Mr.

Marshall; and she will be again - perhaps."

"Why, Daisy," said papa, lifting my face again for scrutiny, - "how do you know? Are you cased in proof armour? are you sure?

Do you know what you are talking of, Daisy?"

"Yes, - I know, papa."

"I see you do. Whenever your eyes are deep and calm like that, you are always in your right mind and know it. That is, you are thoroughly yourself; and so far as my limited acquaintance with you goes, there is no other mind that has the power of turning you. Yes, Daisy; we will go to Palestine, you and I."

I kissed his hand, in the extremity of my joy.

"But this is not a proper season for travelling in Syria, my pet. I am afraid it is not. The winter rains make the roads bad."

"Oh, yes, papa. - We will be quiet when it rains, and travel on the good days. And then we shall be in time to see the spring flowers."

"How do you know anything about that, Daisy?"

"Papa, I remember when I was a child, at Melbourne, Mr.

Dinwiddie told me some of these things; and I have never forgotten."

"Have you wanted to go to Palestine ever since you were ten years old?"

"Oh, no, papa; only of late. When your promise came, then I thought very soon what I would ask you. And now is such a good time."

"There will be different opinions about that," said my father.

"However, we will go, Daisy. To the half of my kingdom. Your mother has the other half. But allow me to ask you just in pa.s.sing, what do you think of our young English friend?"

"He has no head, papa."

Papa looked amused.

"Signor Piacevoli - what do you think of him?"

"He is very nice and kind and full of good things; but he has no principles, papa; no settled principles."

"He has a head," said papa.

"Yes, sir; out of order."

"How do you estimate Mr. Leypoldt, then? - _his_ head is in order, and a good deal in it."

"Only the truth left out, papa."

"The truth?" said my father. "He is fuller of truth, of all sorts, than any one else I know, Daisy."

"Truth of all sorts, papa, but not _the_ truth. He understands the world, and almost everything in it; but not who made it nor what it was made for; and he knows men; but not their work, or place, or destiny in the universe. He knows what they are; he has no idea what they ought to be, or what they may be."

"He is not a religious man, certainly. Do you carry your principles so far, Daisy, that you mean you would not let anybody approach you who is not of your way of thinking?"

A pang shot through my heart, with the instant sense of the answer I ought to give. I might have evaded the question; but I would not. Yet I could not immediately speak. I was going to put a bond upon myself; and the words would not come.

"Do you mean that, Daisy?" papa repeated. "Seriously. Is it your rule of supposed duty, that a man must be a Christian after your sort, to obtain your favour?"

"Papa," I said struggling, - "one cannot control one's liking."

"No," said papa, laughing; "that is very true. Then if you _liked_ somebody who was not that sort of a Christian, Daisy, you would not refuse to marry him?"

"Papa," I said with difficulty, - "I think I ought."

The words struck upon my own heart, I cannot tell how heavily.

But they were forced from me. When the question came, it had to be answered. I suppose the matter had really been in my mind before, vaguely, and I had refused to look at it, while yet I could not help seeing its proportions and bearing; so that when papa asked me I knew what I must say. But the spoken words stunned me, for all that.

"I suppose," said papa, not lightly, "you will think so till you are tried; and then you will take a woman's privilege of changing your mind. But if the trial is to come in that shape, Daisy, it is very far off. There are no men of your way of thinking, my pet."

He kissed me as he said it; and I could not for a moment speak.

"But we will go to Palestine, papa?"

"Yes, we will go to Palestine. That is fixed. You and I will take a holiday, and for a while give up all thoughts of marrying and giving in marriage."

CHAPTER XIV.

FLIGHT

I am coming to the holiday of my life; a time that seems, as I look back to it, like a chequered mosaic of pleasure pieces laid in bright colours, all in harmony, and making out a pattern of beauty. It is odd I should speak so; for I have known other holidays, when fewer clouds were in my sky and fewer life-shadows stretching along the landscape.

Nevertheless, this is how it looks to me in the retrospect; and to write of it, is like setting the pins of that mosaic work over again. Not one of them is lost in my memory.