"I wasn't asking your age," said Roger meditatively. "What's the woman's?"
"She'll be twenty next birthday." The old man was sixty-five. "Well, what's your opinion?" he asked testily, for he knew he was doing a wrong thing, and craved an excuse to work himself into a rage.
"On which?" asked Roger, "—you, or the woman?"
"On the marriage." Old Humphrey stood glowering under his eyebrows, and tapped his boot impatiently with the butt of his riding-whip. "I reckoned it might concern you, that's all."
"I can't see that it does." There was that in Roger's slow look which his father found maddening.
"Oh, can't you?" he sneered.
"No, for the life of me," answered Roger. "'Tis wickedness of course, but I've no call to interfere. Take and marry the miserable fool, if you're so minded."
Humphrey Stephen had more to say, but gulped it down and mounted his horse with a devilish grin.
Roger Stephen went back to his work-bench.