THREE:It never occurred to her to throw these young people together, and give the girl a chance of fighting her father and satisfying the vague longings for adventure and romance which had begun to put torment into her late twenties. She often told her it was a scandal that she had never been allowed to know men, but her own were too few and useful to be sacrificed to the forlorn. Besides, Caro had an odd shy way with men which sometimes made them laugh at her. She had little charm, and though not bad-looking in a heavy black-browed style, she had no feminine arts, and always appeared to the very worst advantage.All flushed with pity she realised the bitterness of his fatehe who was so young and strong and clean and gay, had been degraded, shamed by her father, whom in that moment she looked upon entirely as a brute. It must not be. He had been so good to her, so friendly and courteous in their Sunday walksshe must not let him go away from her shamed and beaten.
