"I know you always say that," replied Louisa, impassively.

She was years older than her brother, but, without a trace
of artifice or intention, contrived to look the younger
of the two. Her thick hair, drawn simply from her temples
into a knot behind, was of that palest brown which
assimilates grey. Her face, long, plain, masculine in
contour and spirit, conveyed no message as to years.
Long and spare of figure, she sat upright in her
straight-backed chair, with her large, capable hands
on her knees.

"I believed in you as much as you'd let me," she went on,
indifferently, almost wearily. "But I don't see that it
mattered to you whether I did or didn't. You went your own
way: you did what you wanted to do. What had I to do
with it? I don't suppose I even knew what part of the
world you were in more than once in two or three years.
How should I know whether you were going to succeed,
when I didn't even know what it was you were at? Certainly
you hadn't succeeded here in London--but elsewhere you
might or you might not--how could I tell? And moreover,
I don't feel that I know you very well; you've grown
into something very different from the boy Joel that left
the shop--it must be twenty years ago. I can only know
about you and your affairs what you tell me."

"But my point is," pursued Thorpe, watching her face with
a curiously intent glance, "you never said to yourself: