"Oh, I think so. And it would be more fun for the old darling to marry somebody he was in love with, than just to marry again—somebody like the Dragon, perhaps—just because we have got married and he feels rather lonely. Aunt Mary says that it isn't fair to expect him just to sit down by himself and think of us and our babies. He has as much life in him as anybody else, and he has given us the best part of it. Now we've left him he ought to have a chance on his own account. I don't look at it quite like that, but—"
"I'm sure he doesn't," Caroline interrupted her. "He has been the dearest father to us that anybody could have had, but we have made him happy, too. It isn't as if he had sacrificed himself."
"That's what I told her, and she said the sacrifice would begin now, if we didn't do all we could to help this on. What does Ella think about it, Cara? You ought to have found out by this time. I'm not sure I shan't ask her when I see her."
"You won't want to when you do see her. She is just the same—towards him and towards us. I think she always will be. That's why I sometimes think that it would be rather nice if it did happen—nice for us, I mean, as well as for Dad."
"That's what I have come to think, too, with Aunt Mary to assist me. What she says is that if there were a question of his marrying somebody of what would be called a suitable age we should probably be glad of it, as we shouldn't have to bother ourselves about Dad when we simply wanted to be selfish with our own homes and husbands."
"Yes, that's the sort of thing that Aunt Mary would say."
"But what we really object to is his having the sort of happiness we have got for ourselves. Because he wouldn't get any of it from us."
"There is generally a spice of truth in Aunt Mary's sharp speeches, which is worth looking out for. You haven't told me what Dick says about it."
"Oh, Dick takes the man's point of view, of course. Man remains a lovable creature till he's about seventy, or eighty or ninety. A woman has to leave off expecting to be loved when she's about thirty. He says Dad is as young as anybody, and he can't see what all the fuss is about."