"But he isn't so very young. He must be at least thirty-five. I think his way is a very silly way, and he is quite old enough to know better."
It was a choice of repeating her words, "You think!" and going on to explain with strong irritability that it didn't matter what she thought; or swallowing the offence. For he could not very well follow his inclination to upbraid, without seriously impairing his efficacy for reasoning with her. He chose the latter course.
"A man of thirty-five is a young man in these days, especially if he has led an active, temperate, open-air life, as young fellows in good circumstances do lead now-a-days."
"But I thought one of your objections to him was that he lived too much in London."
He waved the interruption aside. "Even people who live for the most part in London—work there, perhaps—well, like Walter does—have a taste for country life, and go in for sport and so forth whenever they have the opportunity. In the old days it wasn't so. There was a story of some big political wig—I forget who it was—Fox or Walpole or Pitt, or one of those fellows—who had the front of his country house paved with cobble stones, and made them drive carriages about half the night whenever he had to be there, so as to make him think he was in St. James's, with the hackney-coaches. Said he couldn't sleep otherwise. Ha, ha!"
"What a good idea!" said Joan, brightening to an opportunity of diverting the conversation. "I think stories about people in the eighteenth century are awfully interesting. Father, you have books of reminiscences about them in the library, haven't you?"
"Oh yes. Your great grandfather used to read them. He knew Fox; saw him come into the Cocoa-Tree one night and call for a bumper of—— However, that's not what we were talking about. But it's got this much to do with it, that men like Fox were looked upon as middle-aged men at five and thirty, and old men, by George, at fifty; but a man of thirty-five now is a young man, and it's all owing to the revival of country life and country sport, which, as I say, everybody who is anybody takes part in now-a-days, whether he's a Londoner or not."
"Yes, I see. But I like the people who live regularly in the country, like you, and Dick, and Jim. I think it's much the best life for a man, and a girl too. I should like to live it always, myself."
"Yes, well, I hope you will—for a good part of the year, at any rate. Of course, you can't expect to live at home—here at Kencote, I mean—all your life. You're grown up, now, and when young fledglings feel their wings, you know, the parent birds must make up their minds to lose them out of the nest."
"But they would like to keep them if they could. You don't want to lose me, father, do you?"