“Nothing serious.” Vincent looked more closely at his father-in-law. “You yourself don’t look just the thing, sir.”
Mr. Lanley sat down more limply than was his custom.
“I’m getting to an age,” he said, “when I can’t stand scenes. We had something of a scene here yesterday afternoon. God bless my soul! though, I believe Adelaide told me not to mention it to you.”
“Adelaide is very considerate,” replied her husband. His extreme susceptibility to sorrow made Mr. Lanley notice a tone which ordinarily would have escaped him, and he looked up so sharply that Farron was forced to add quickly: “But you haven’t made a break. I know about what took place.”
The egotism of suffering, the distorted vision of a sleepless night, made Mr. Lanley blurt out suddenly:
“I want to ask you, Vincent, do you think I could have done anything different?”
Now, none of the accounts which Farron had received had made any mention of Mr. Lanley’s part in the proceedings at all, and so he paused a moment, and in that pause Mr. Lanley went on:
“It’s a difficult position—before a boy’s mother. There isn’t anything against him, of course. One’s reasons for not wanting the marriage do sound a little snobbish when one says them—right out. In fact, I suppose they are snobbish. Do you find it hard to get away from early prejudices, Vincent? I do. I think Adelaide is quite right; and yet the boy is a nice boy. What do you think of him?”
“I have taken him into my office.”
Mr. Lanley was startled by a courage so far beyond his own.