It was like a new confidence, and after another instant she knew even still better why.

Wasn't it because now, also, on his side, he was thinking of her as his daughter, was TRYING her, during these mute seconds, as the child of his blood?
Oh then, if she wasn't with her little conscious passion, the child of any weakness, what was she but strong enough too?
It swelled in her, fairly; it raised her higher, higher: she wasn't in that case a failure either--hadn't been, but the contrary; his strength was her strength, her pride was his, and they were decent and competent together.

This was all in the answer she finally made him.
"I believe in you more than any one." "Than any one at all ?" She hesitated, for all it might mean; but there was--oh a thousand times!--no doubt of it.

"Than any one at all." She kept nothing of it back now, met his eyes over it, let him have the whole of it; after which she went on: "And that's the way, I think, you believe in me." He looked at her a minute longer, but his tone at last was right.

"About the way--yes." "Well then-- ?" She spoke as for the end and for other matters--for anything, everything, else there might be.