Ella laughed. "I shouldn't care to run that risk," she said. "One's freedom is worth something, after all. I shouldn't want to marry anybody unless I loved him."
"No. You're very young still. You've a right to look for that sort of thing. But there's love and love. Unless you find yourself bowled over by a passion, which may happen to anybody unless they're on the lookout—at least, I'm told so; it hasn't happened to me yet—I should pick out a man you like and can trust to look after you, and make you happy. It's much more comfortable in the long run, and if you manage him properly you'll have all the love that's good for you, and the sort that lasts."
"Supposing he doesn't pick me!"
"Oh, my dear, you could make any man pick you. You'd only have to pay him a little attention, and flatter his vanity. They're all the same, when they arrive at years of indiscretion. That sounds rather clever. I suppose you wouldn't want quite a young man. I should think you wouldn't have much difficulty there either, though they want more careful handling; they're so full of whims and crotchets. But I shouldn't recommend quite a young man. Five and thirty to two or three and forty is the best age. I wish George was ten years or so younger. Then you might marry him, and we should keep you in the family. He's the dearest old affectionate bat-eyed creature, really, though I never let him know that I think so."
"Why do you call him bat-eyed? I don't propose to accept your invitation, but I love him all the same; and I don't think he's bat-eyed."
"Oh, my dear—the fuss he's made about his girls! I've had it all out with him. He thinks he's been actuated solely by the most unselfish desire for their happiness, when all the time he's just been hating it because he can't keep them forever circling round himself."
"I think you're very unfair. He does love them awfully, and of course he hates losing them. But the way he's behaved about Caroline shows that he hasn't been thinking of what he wants himself. I feel very sorry for him now. He has to begin all over again, and he isn't a bit like an old man, who can sit down and wait for the end. He's as young in his mind and in his tastes as if he were twenty years younger."
"Yes, he's more of a baby than most men of his age, and that's saying a good deal. He's kept himself fit too. Oh, I don't deny that it has been a good thing for him to have his children to play with. No doubt it has kept him out of a lot of mischief. And I'm rather sorry for him losing them, too, though I don't tell him so. He's too apt to be sorry for himself; and after all, he's got to put up with it, like everybody else."
"How unfeeling you are! I'm not going to hear my dear Mr. Grafton criticised in that way without protesting. If he had really been selfish, as most men are, he would just have gone on amusing himself and hardly have missed the girls at all. It's no discredit to him that he has been so happy in his home that he can't bear it to be broken up."
"I suppose he was grousing and grumbling about that when you went out for a walk this afternoon."