Both stopped likewise at the same instant to make way for the other, and both failed to recommence.
Maisie stepped forward impatiently, stood between them, towering superbly.
“I don’t see why you want all this icy ceremony, both of you,” she said scornfully. She turned to her father. “Jim wants to marry me, Father—and I want to marry Jim. And that’s all there is to it!”
“Indeed!” He raised his eyebrows in mild sarcasm. “I wonder you thought it necessary to inform me of such a trifling matter.”
“We thought it better to tell you.” Maisie was cheerfully unscathed.
“Much obliged, I am sure. I’m very interested. I expect you will both of you want to marry lots more people before you’ve finished. I shall always be willing to lend a sympathetic ear when you care to tell me of the latest.”
“Father!” broke out Maisie indignantly. He felt that he had scored. “This is serious!”
“It always is,” he said philosophically. “And you, young man? I suppose you are burning to add your testimony of the solemnity of this occasion to Maisie’s?” He felt that if he could only keep it up on this tone he was safe. Maisie was apt to be so damnably stubborn and unmanageable once he failed to maintain superiority. As for the young man—well, of course, he was only a young man. He could soon manage him!
This young man, however, was no whit abashed.