Mrs. Richmond sat writing at a desk not far from where Richmond was standing. As Peter started up the walk toward the house Richmond said to his wife: “What a chucklehead Peter is! No wonder Beatrice felt like balking.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t say Peter was worth getting excited about, one way or the other,” replied Mrs. Richmond.
“The young men growing up nowadays are a mighty cheap, thin lot. He’s as good as any.” Richmond pressed his lips together firmly. “And he’s the best possible husband for her. A strong woman ought to marry a small man if there’s to be peace.”
Mrs. Richmond sneered—faintly and covertly—at the paper before her. She did not miss any of the possible implications of her husband’s remark. For once, however, she did him an injustice. He was not hitting at her—had not meant to insinuate that a strong man ought to marry a small woman, and that Daniel Richmond had done this very thing. He was thinking only of his daughter and Peter. He would have liked to provide her with a real man; he sincerely regretted the exigencies of his game—of the game of life as it lies—that forbade it, that forced him to give her only a Peter Vanderkief.
He consoled himself by feeling that she would before many years appreciate what he had done for her—this, when she should have installed herself in the dazzling position her ability would make out of the wealth he could give her and the prestige she would get through Peter’s ancient lineage. Being a man of imagination—as every man who achieves in whatever direction must be—Richmond had a strong vein of sentiment, of romance. He could not but sympathize with his daughter’s heart trouble, now that her acquiescence in his plans permitted him to be fair-minded—in secret. But romance was a fleeting thing, while the things he had been planning for her were not spring-time ephemerals, but the substantialities that make a human being comfortable and often happy the whole life through from youth to old age.
When Peter entered, Mrs. Richmond had finished her note and was just departing. “Will you drive with me in about an hour?” asked she, passing him in the door.
“Sorry, but I’ve got——”
“Oh, if Beatrice needs you,” laughed she, going on and leaving the two men alone.
Peter interrupted Richmond’s reverie with a bomb. “Beatrice has broken the engagement,” said he nervously. “She refuses to marry me.”