“And if she told you that I—if she ever said anything about marrying me—you wouldn’t put a spoke in the wheel, would you?”
“I should do nothing to discourage her,” I said—“not from any desire to see her marry you, but for the opposite reason. Old though I am, I have not forgotten that forbidden fruit is the most attractive. So I shouldn’t forbid you.”
“I say, that’s brainy,” he said, with genuine admiration. “I should never have thought of that.”
“May I ask,” I said, “if you have put your case to Miss Holt?”
“Not in so many words,” he replied. “I thought I would see you first.”
“That’s rather an unusual course nowadays, isn’t it?”
“Well, that’s how the mater felt, anyway. It was her idea.”
“You talked it over with your mother?”
“Yes.”
“So Rose is all ignorant of this visit?”