She parried his question.
“You know them both—what do you think?”
“I know them, but I can’t say I know her,” he answered. “However, I know her mother, if I may say so, without offence, and if Mrs. Dingle favours you, then I’d say without hesitation that she chose the right party.”
“She’s like me and not like me,” explained Lydia. “I was pretty near what she is at her age.”
“Better looking, I expect,” he interrupted.
“No, nothing like so fine—just a little go-by-the-ground woman, same as I am now. But in character, not unlike her. And if I’d had so good a time as she has had, no doubt I should have made the same mistakes and not known reality better than her.”
“You can have too much reality,” declared Philander. “Most of us poor people have such a deuce of a lot of reality that we get tired of it. There’s thousands for that matter that never have anything else; and reality ain’t fattening if you belong to the labouring classes. But if she’d took Jordan Kellock, then she’d have known what reality was, and very likely gone down under it, like a mole under a cart wheel. He’s a wonderful good, earnest man—worth all the rest of us put together, I dare say; but as a husband for a young, pretty, laughter-loving woman—no. He ain’t built that way, and if your Medora finds that Dingle isn’t all she dreamed—as what man is after the gilt’s off the gingerbread?—then let her be sure she’d have done still worse along with Kellock.”
Mrs. Trivett was moved, and nodded vigorously. “Very good sense, and you echo me,” she answered. “I’ve thought much the same. You’re an understanding man, and kind-hearted seemingly, and have been married yourself, so you see things in a large spirit. I think my girl took the right one.”
“Then she did, for you’d make no mistake,” declared Knox. “And if the right one, then we can trust time to prove it. I’m a great believer in the marriage state myself. It’s a power for good most times, and so I hope you found it.”
But Mrs. Trivett was not prepared for any further confidences on this occasion. She did not answer his question, though she expressed herself a believer in marriage.