“Ha-ha! I know it isn’t,” he answered with a growl that was more than half a chuckle.
“Well, and what do you think of it?”
“Um! ah! I don’t know what to think. If the young people like each other, I don’t see why they shouldn’t see plenty of each other—in a place like this. If they decide they don’t—well, there’s no harm done.”
“But I’ve always heard you say that Sir Francis Orlebar was a poor man—a poor man with a second wife,” said Mrs Wyatt, tentatively.
“So is Alma. I don’t mean with a second wife—ha-ha! But she hasn’t a sixpence, and it would be a blessed day for her that on which she got away from that mother of hers for good and all.”
“But isn’t that all the more reason she should marry somebody who is well off?”
“Well, yes, I suppose it is. But then, you can’t have everything. It’s seldom enough you get cash and every other desirable endowment thrown in. Now I like Phil Orlebar. I don’t know when I’ve seen a young fellow I’ve liked more. It’s a thousand pities, though, that his father didn’t put him into some profession or give him something to do; but it isn’t too late now, and Alma might do worse. Here—hang it all!” he broke off with a growl.—“What a couple of mischief-making old match-makers we are becoming. It’s getting cold. Time to go in.”