Hollister smiled good-humouredly. “Before you go any further, my boy,” he interrupted kindly, “I warn you that you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Frothingham stiffly.
“The person you want to see is the girl’s mother. She attends to all that end of the business. I’ve got enough trouble to look after at my own end.”
“What I have to say can be said properly only to her father as the head of the family.”
“But I’m not the head of the family. I’m not sure that I know who is. Sometimes I think it’s my wife, again I suspect Catherine.”
“Your daughter now refuses to abide by her engagement,” said Frothingham, in desperation at this untimely levity.
Hollister took off his glasses and examined them on both sides with great care. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose that settles it.”
Frothingham stared. “I beg pardon, but it does not settle it.”
Hollister gave him a look of fatherly sympathy. “I guess it does. You can’t marry her if she won’t have you. And if she won’t have you—why, she won’t.”
“You treat the matter lightly.” Frothingham had a bright red spot in either cheek. “You do not seem to be conscious of the painful position in which she places you.”