James opened briskly. "Rosemary and I are anxious to know, Trent, when we may mention this plan of ours to your mother?"
Trent was deeply disappointed. He had hoped, at the least, for a reasonable openness of mind, and he was met with what looked painfully like a display of temper. It was clear that argument was no use, there was nothing for it but to be firm.
"As soon as you like, sir," he said in a tone which he hoped would express the sentiments desirable to a man in his position, "as long as my mother understands that it has nothing to do with me."
"As long as we tell her that you wash your hands of her!"
This was unfair, and Trent hated unfairness. He stared hard at the cigar for a moment while he tried to master his irritation, telling himself that thirty years of business make a man quick to put others in the wrong. His father, watching him, was struck by the attitude. "Good lord," he thought, "he might be a curate! Well, well...." Meanwhile Trent was answering. "My dear father, once we're committed to this plan it won't be possible to wash our hands of it. But I don't want my mother to think I approve of it."
"It would be interesting," said James, who was accustomed to come off best in verbal disputes, "exceedingly interesting to know why!"
Trent picked his way as well as he could, among his reasons. "Well, in the first place, I'm convinced that it will make difficulties. Perhaps I see more of the girls than you do, and they're as discontented as they can be. Especially the waitresses. We simply can't afford to have them upset." He hesitated.
"And what in the second place?"
"In the second place, then, I must say that I don't think it's suitable for my mother. Our girls are not like villagers, they're not accustomed to ladies. And mother has never had any experience of this sort of thing."
By this time James was angry too. Trent had as good as said that he didn't take proper care of his own wife. That wasn't an arguable matter, so he let it rankle a little and turned to the other point. "I really can't congratulate you on your apparent experience," he said. "Our waitresses are a perfectly respectable lot of girls; I shouldn't in the least mind my daughters going amongst them. In any case I can't see why you should think that your mother is likely to corrupt them!"