“Why, Lucius, what do you mean?”
“You surprise me, Colonel!”
“Is that so, Daddy!”
He waited deliberately before saying more; he had been thinking over the subject and knew what he wanted to say. Then he spoke with an air of settled conviction:
“Yes, my dear!” He spoke to Joy alone, and thus, to all three, unconsciously gave away his purpose. “I thought so at the time, and to-day, whenever I have considered the matter, the conviction has increased.” Mrs. Ogilvie, seeing on her daughter’s face a certain hardening of the muscles, took it for granted that it was some form of chagrin; in a protective spirit she tried to make that matter right:
“My dear Lucius, I really cannot see how you arrive at such a conclusion. It seemed to me that the young man was in rather an exalted condition of happiness. I could not help noticing the way he kept looking at Joy. And indeed no wonder after the gallant way he had saved her life.” She added the last sentence as a subtle way of reminding her husband that they were all under obligation to the young gentleman. Moreover there was in her heart as a mother—and all mothers are the same in this respect—that feeling of pride in her daughter which demands that all men shall be attracted by her charms. No matter how detrimental a man may be, nor how determined she is that his suit shall not be finally successful, a mother considers it the duty of the young man to love her daughter and desire her.
Joy somehow felt humiliated. It was not merely that she should be the centre of such a discussion—for, after all, it was through rescuing her that he was there at all; but she was hurt and disappointed that this particular man should be discussed in any way. She had seen no fault in him; nothing to discuss in his conduct or his bearing or his words or his person. She herself had admired him immensely. He was somehow different from all the other men she had ever seen. … Then pride came to her rescue. Not pride for herself, but for him. In her heart he was her man, and she had to protect his honour; and she would do so, if necessary. This idea at once schooled her to restraint, and steeled her to endure. With an unconscious shrug she remained silent.
But Judy’s keen eyes had been on her, and both her natural sympathy and the experience of her own heart allowed her to interpret pretty well. She saw that for Joy’s sake—either now or hereafter—some opposition to the Colonel’s idea was necessary. She had noticed the settled look—it had not yet become a frown—which came over his face when his wife spoke of his looking at Joy. In just such moments and on subjects as this it is that a father’s and a mother’s ideas join issue. Whilst the mother expects the singling out of the daughter for devotion, the father’s first impulse is to resent it. Colonel Ogilvie’s resentment had all his life been habitually expressed with force and rapidity; even in a tender matter of this kind the habit unconsciously worked.
“All the more reason, Sarah, for his being candid about himself. For my own part I can understand one attitude or the other; but certainly not both at once!”
Joy began to get seriously alarmed. The mere use of her mother’s formal name was a danger-signal of rare use. By its light she could realise that her father had what he considered in his own mind to be a real cause of complaint. She did not like to speak herself; she feared that just at present it might complicate matters. So she looked over appealing at Judy, who understood and spoke: