His blood was up, and he spoke with as much firmness as, and with more fire than, he had ever before shown to his employer.
Mr. Cornthwaite, who had grounds for feeling uneasy, was lenient, patient, attentive, curious.
“Why, don’t you know, Elshaw,” said he sharply, “that a man should mate with his opposite if he wants to be happy? That grave and serious men like frivolous wives; but that your lively young fellow likes a sober-minded wife to keep his house in order?”
“Sir, if it’s Mr. Christian’s choice, there’s an end of it,” said Bram brusquely.
“Of course it’s his choice, none the less, but rather the more, that it meets not only with my approval, but with that of the ladies of my family,” said Mr. Cornthwaite pompously.
Yet still he was curious, still unsatisfied. And still Bram said nothing.
“Believe me,” Mr. Cornthwaite went on impressively, “a man is none the less amenable to the influence of a good wife for having sown his wild oats first. With a wife like the one I—no, I mean he has chosen,” a faint smile flickered over Bram’s mouth at this correction, “my son will settle down into a model husband and father. You want the two elements, seriousness on the one side, good-humored gayety on the other, to make a happy marriage. Why, I ought to know, for these are exactly the principles on which I married myself.”
Mr. Cornthwaite uttered these words with an air of bland assurance, which, he thought, must carry conviction. But his young hearer, unfortunately, had heard enough about the domestic life at Holme Park to know that the “sensible marriage” on which Mr. Cornthwaite prided himself had by no means resulted in domestic peace. The bickerings of the ill-matched pair were, in fact, a constant source of misery to all the household, and were used freely by Chris as an excuse for his neglect of home.
Bram, therefore, received this information with courtesy, but without comment. Mr. Cornthwaite kept his eyes steadily fixed upon the young man, and found himself at last obliged to put a direct question.
“You had, I suppose, expected him to make a different sort of choice?”