thought.
"What is it?" she asked in a low tone: her breathing just then seeming a little difficult.
"What is what?"
"The bond of union between you and these Bells."
The question brought him out of his abstraction. He laughed lightly: laughed, as Daisy thought, and saw, to do away with the impression the words had made: and answered carelessly.
"The bond between me and Dame Bell? It is that I knew her at Trennach, Daisy, and learnt to respect her. She nursed me through a fever once."
"Oh," said Daisy, turning her head away, indignant at what she believed was an evasion. The "bond," if there were any, existed, not between himself and the mother, but between himself and the daughter.
"I dare say you attend them for nothing!"
"Of course I do."