"Well, that shall go for something. But how about the idiot?"
"Papa!" she exclaimed.
"Was he not an idiot? Would any one but an idiot have gone on such an errand as that?"
"Gentlemen and ladies have done it before, papa."
"I doubt it," he said. "Gentlemen have run away with young ladies before, and generally have behaved very badly when they have done so. He behaved very badly indeed, because he had come to my house, with my sanction, with the express purpose of expressing his affection for another young lady. But I think that his folly in this special running away was worse even than his conduct. How did he come to think that he could get himself married merely by crossing over the sea to Ostend? I should be utterly ashamed of him as a son-in-law,—chiefly because he has shown himself to be an idiot."
"But, papa, you will accept him, won't you?"
"No, my dear, I will not."
"Not though I love him?"
"If I were to give you a choice which you would take, him or Mr. Houston?"
"Houston is a scoundrel."