“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Opp, gratefully, but helplessly; “I was just coming to that point. It’s a matter—that—er—well you might say it is in a way pertaining—to—”
“Guin-never!” snapped Mrs. Gusty, unable longer to stand his hesitation. “I’d have been a deaf-mute and a fool to boot not to have known it long ago. Not that I’ve been consulted in the matter.” She lifted a stiffened chin, and turned her gaze upward.
[p221]
“You have,” declared Mr. Opp, earnestly; “that is, you will be. Everything is pending on you. There has been no steps whatever taken by Miss Guinnever or I—rather I might say by her. I can’t say but what I have made some slight preliminary arrangements.” He paused, then went on anxiously: “I trust there ain’t any personal objections to the case.”
Mrs. Gusty made folds in her black-silk skirt and creased them down with her thumb-nail. “No,” she said shortly; “far as I can see, Guin-never would be doing mighty well to get you. You’d be a long sight safer than a good-looking young fellow. Of course a man being so much older than a girl is apt to leave her a widow. But, for my part, I believe in second marriages.”
Mr. Opp felt as if he had received a hot and cold douche at the same time; but the result was a glow.
“Then you don’t oppose it, Mrs. Gusty,” he cried eagerly. “You’ll write her you are willing?”
[p222]
“Not yet,” said Mrs. Gusty; “there’s a condition.”
“There ain’t any condition in the world I won’t meet to get her,” he exclaimed recklessly, his fervor bursting its bounds. “You don’t know how I feel about that young lady. Why, I’d live on bread and water all the rest of my life if it would make her happy. There hasn’t been a hour since I met her that she hasn’t held my soul—as you might say—in the pa’m of her hand.”
“People don’t often get it so bad at our age,” remarked Mrs. Gusty, sarcastically, and Mr. Opp winced.
“The condition,” went on Mrs. Gusty, “that I spoke about, was your sister. Of course I never would consent to Guin-never living under the same roof with a crazy person.”