"Oh, ashamed! There's no need to talk like that. And one can't take up the position that fathers used to take up over their daughters' marriages. I don't know that you're not right, and the only thing one is entitled to stipulate for nowadays is an assured and sufficient income. Even that seems to have been considered unreasonable in lots of the marriages one has seen take place during the war."
"Yes, I know. But I've waited until I could assure you of a sufficient income, and I've come to you first, as I suppose I shouldn't have done if I hadn't recognized that I was aiming higher than what might be considered my deserts."
"Well, what is it that you want of me exactly? I've no reason to be offended at your coming to me, you know. I've known you for most of your life, and you've been welcomed into my family. I treated you as a friend, myself, only the other day."
"Oh, that was nothing," said Fred. "I was only too glad to be able to be of use to you. I should have been anyhow."
Colonel Eldridge winced a little. "I'll say quite plainly," he said, in a slightly harder voice, "that, from my own point of view, I should be disappointed if my daughter didn't make what would be called a better marriage; but I say it without meaning any offence to you. If she chose to accept you, I shouldn't—I shouldn't refuse my permission, though I think—yes, I think I should stipulate for a certain time to elapse. Will that satisfy you?"
Perhaps it was rather more than Fred had expected, though it was not precisely encouraging. Colonel Eldridge seemed a good deal farther from him than on the last occasion he had talked to him in this room. "I want my chance with her," he said.
"Well, what do you mean by that? You mustn't go to her, you know, saying that I'm in favour of your—your suit, or whatever you like to call it. How far have you got with her? I say again that this is a complete surprise to me, and I shouldn't have thought that she could have given you any encouragement to go upon."
"I don't know that she has. One has one's own private hopes. We have been friends; I think I can say as much as that. I was a friend of Hugo's; she's been a sort of inspiration to me all my life. Especially lately, it has made a different man of me to think of her. I've been a rough sort of fellow—had to be, in some ways, in the fight I've had to put up. I'm not good enough for her; of course I'm not. But who is?"
Colonel Eldridge's face had grown a little softer. "You talk of her in the right sort of way," he said. "Well, I must leave it to her. If she says yes, I shan't say no."