‘No. Family rows about marriages. Nasty letters. Refusals to recognise the choice of a son, a daughter, or a widowed but youthful old parent, among the upper classes. Harsh words. Refusals to allow meetings or correspondence. Broken hearts. Improvident marriages. Preaching down a daughter’s heart, or an aged parent’s heart, or a
nephew’s, or a niece’s, or a ward’s, or anybody’s heart. Peace restored to the household. Intended marriage off, and nobody a penny the worse, unless—’
‘Unless what?’ said Logan.
‘Practical difficulties,’ said Merton, ‘will occur in every enterprise. But they won’t be to our disadvantage, the reverse—if they don’t happen too often. And we can guard against that by a scientific process.’
‘Now will you explain,’ Logan asked, ‘or shall I pour this whisky and water down the back of your neck?’
He rose to his feet, menace in his eye.
‘Bear fighting barred! We are no longer boys. We are men—broken men. Sit down, don’t play the bear,’ said Merton.
‘Well, explain, or I fire!’
‘Don’t you see? The problem for the family, for hundreds of families, is to get the undesirable marriage off without the usual row. Very few people really like a row. Daughter becomes anæmic; foreign cures are expensive and no good. Son goes to the Devil or the Cape. Aged and opulent, but amorous, parent leaves everything he can scrape together to disapproved of new wife. Relations cut each other all round. Not many people really enjoy that kind of thing. They want a pacific solution—marriage off, no remonstrances.’
‘And how are you going to do it?’