Lewes made no comment. He silently considered this further drawback to the marriage. And Christopher, happy and expansive, continued: ‘She has married a man years older than herself.’
‘Who has?’ inquired Lewes, not quite following.
‘Well, Catherine hasn’t, has she.’
‘No. I’m obtuse. Forgive me. I think I was surprised your wife should have a daughter grown up enough to marry.’
‘It is absurd, isn’t it,’ said Christopher, liking Lewes for this. ‘She’s much too young, isn’t she. He’s a parson, and old enough to be her father.’
‘Whose father?’ asked Lewes, again not quite following.
‘His wife’s, of course. The girl’s only a girl, and he’s a horny-beaked old rooster.’
‘Is he?’ said Lewes, and thought things. Not that he, or, he admitted, anybody, could possibly have applied such epithets to Chris’s wife, but still.... And had his friend considered that he was now the stepfather-in-law of a person he described as a horny-beaked old rooster?
‘Why, he’s old enough to be Catherine’s father too,’ said Christopher.
‘Is he?’ said Lewes, reflecting how that could be. Wouldn’t that make him old enough, then, to be his wife’s grandfather? Well, best let it alone. It was a perplexing mix-up.