you--you can't say I ain't kind to you or that I don't play fair. Mind
you never say that, you know--it WOULD bring me down on you. I know
what's proper. I'll take you again, just as I HAVE taken you again and
again. And I'm much obliged to you for making up such a face."

She was conscious enough that her face indeed couldn't please him if it
showed any sign--just as she hoped it didn't--of her sharp impression of
what he now really wanted to do. Wasn't he trying to turn the tables on
her, embarrass her somehow into admitting that what would really suit
her little book would be, after doing so much for good manners, to leave
her wholly at liberty to arrange for herself? She began to be nervous
again: it rolled over her that this was their parting, their parting
for ever, and that he had brought her there for so many caresses only
because it was important such an occasion should look better for him
than any other. For her to spoil it by the note of discord would
certainly give him ground for complaint; and the child was momentarily
bewildered between her alternatives of agreeing with him about her
wanting to get rid of him and displeasing him by pretending to stick
to him. So she found for the moment no solution but to murmur very
helplessly: "Oh papa--oh papa!"

"I know what you're up to--don't tell ME!" After which he came straight
over and, in the most inconsequent way in the world, clasped her in
his arms a moment and rubbed his beard against her cheek. Then she
understood as well as if he had spoken it that what he wanted, hang
it, was that she should let him off with all the honours--with all
the appearance of virtue and sacrifice on his side. It was exactly as
if he had broken out to her: "I say, you little booby, help me to be
irreproachable, to be noble, and yet to have none of the beastly bore of
it. There's only impropriety enough for one of us; so YOU must take it