"I can't understand what Vanda sees in him," she remarked during their evening chat "He's more selfish than ever. He never does a thing she wants unless he happens to want it, too. I suppose that's why she is so devoted."
Ian observed, and found that his mother was right. Not that he saw much of the happy pair. He only met them at meals, and delegated his mother to sound Joseph about the marriage settlement. He won his argument with her about that, too. But the thing had yet to be discussed and he put it off, not wanting to see Joseph alone if he could help it. There was time for that. Meanwhile, the estate kept him busy. But the marriage date was settled for three months hence. That was his work. He would have had it earlier, but the Countess thought it looked too hasty.
Joseph was quite satisfied to wait. He wanted to do up his country house, and furnishing took time. He did not consult Vanda about the furniture. He had ideas of his own and meant to carry them out. Yet he seemed proud of the girl and pleased to have won her; the rest of the family admitted that. What annoyed them was his boundless self-satisfaction. She would be his in the same way as his beautiful estate in Eastern Prussia, as his horses, or his sound investments.
"She is his chattel," was Ian's verdict one evening when alone with his mother. She gave him a sidelong look, but said nothing for the moment. Later on she mooted matrimony to him.
"It is high time you settled down," she said. "It is a great mistake for people to put off marriage too long. They lose courage as they grow older."
"Give me another year of liberty," he pleaded, laughing. "I'm not thirty-five yet. By next year I'll have the new farm buildings finished and the new forest planted. Then you shall find me a wife."
"I've one for you already," she said, caressing his face with her fine hazel eyes.
"What a matchmaker! Tell me the worst. Who is it."
She hesitated before saying: "Minnie Burton," and watched him closely.
"Minnie?" This in surprise. He had never thought of her. Then: "But she is a foreigner."