“Don't you think, Major, that this is a case for a little time to reflect,—that in a matter so momentous as this, a few days at least are requisite for consideration? We ought to ascertain something at least of my granddaughter's own sentiments,—I mean, of course, in a general way. It might be, too, that a day or two might give us some better insight into her future prospects.”
“Pardon my interrupting you; but, on the last point, I am perfectly indifferent. Miss Barrington with half a province for her dower, would be no more in my eyes than Miss Barrington as she sat at breakfast this morning. Nor is there anything of high-flown sentiment in this declaration, as my means are sufficiently ample for all that I want or care.”
“There, at least, is one difficulty disposed of. You are an eldest son?” said he; and he blushed at his own boldness in making the inquiry.
“I am an only son.”
“Easier again,” said Barrington, trying to laugh off the awkward moment. “No cutting down one's old timber to pay off the provisions for younger brothers.”
“In my case there is no need of this.”
“And your father. Is he still living, Major Stapylton?”
“My father has been dead some years.”
Barrington fidgeted again, fumbled with his watch-chain and his eye-glass, and would have given more than he could afford for any casualty that should cut short the interview. He wanted to say, “What is the amount of your fortune? What is it? Where is it? Are you Wiltshire or Staffordshire? Who are your uncles and aunts, and your good friends that you pray for, and where do you pray for them?” A thousand questions of this sort arose in his mind, one only more prying and impertinent than another. He knew he ought to ask them; he knew Dinah would have asked them. Ay, and would have the answers to them as plain and palpable as the replies to a life assurance circular; but he could n't do it. No; not if his life depended on it.
He had already gone further in his transgression of good manners than it ever occurred to him before to do, and he felt something between a holy inquisitor and a spy of the police.