The day following Rod drew his father into the library and bluntly announced his engagement to Mary Thorn, also that the date of their marriage was set for the first week in July, exactly one month ahead.
Norquay senior sat down, lighted a cigar. He did not precisely lose his poise, but he was slightly staggered.
"Well," he said at last, "the younger generation is supposed to be speedy but I didn't imagine you would ever step on the accelerator like this. Why the mad haste? Can't you at least give us a chance to get acquainted with the young woman?"
"We've had plenty of opportunities for acquaintance," Rod could not forbear saying, "since she is a close neighbor, so to speak. Besides, the family isn't marrying Miss Thorn, pater. I am. And I have known her for several years."
"I suppose she's pretty," his father observed grimly. "Has she any manners? Education? Ever been anywhere?"
Rod looked at him soberly.
"Are you trying to get my goat?" he asked. "If you want me to blow up, polite insult is as good a way as any. I'm of age and a little more. You took pains to educate me. You've granted at various times that I have good taste in many things. I should be qualified to choose a wife with—with the ordinary essentials."
"Perhaps I didn't put it very well," Norquay senior replied. "I don't mean to adopt a toplofty hypercritical attitude. I may seem unduly impertinent, my son, but marriage is important—in this family, and to this family. A wife isn't something to be put aside if she doesn't happen to suit. Remember, I've had no warning of this. Therefore, naturally, the first questions that occur to me are these: Is the girl such as we can accept into the family as one of us? Is she a person our friends can meet as one of themselves? Have you asked yourself this, Rod?"
"Yes," Rod answered. "Contrary to the general notion of what an infatuated youngster does in such circumstances, I have. Or at least I should certainly have done so if there had been any doubt in the matter. To be quite candid, Mary Thorn has equally as good manners and as much—if not a good deal more—education as any girl I know. And about fifty per cent more discrimination in most things. If the family and the family's set refuse to accept her at her face value, that will be the privilege of snobbery. It won't make any difference to me."
"Quite sure about that?"