"What difference will that make, so long as you know better?"
The question was so deliberate and matter-of-fact that Fleetwell forgot himself and let frankness run away with him.
"That's just it; how the deuce is a fellow going to know——" but at this point the cold eyes checked him, and he suddenly remembered that he was speaking to Gertrude's father. Whereupon he stultified himself and made a promise.
"Perhaps you are right, after all," he added. "Anyway, I'll have it out with her to-night, after she comes back."
"'Have it out with her' doesn't sound very lover-like," suggested the President, mildly. "I can assure you beforehand that you will have to take a different tone with her, whether you are sincere or not; otherwise you will waste your breath and enrich half a dozen charities we know of."
"Oh, I'll do it right," said Fleetwell, nonchalantly; "but I'd give my share of the money twice over if it didn't have to be done at all—that is, if the money matter could be taken out of it entirely, I mean."
They smoked on in reflective silence for five full minutes before the President saw fit to resume the conversation. Then he said, slowly and in his levellest tone:
"You are going to speak to her to-night; very good—you have my best wishes, as you know. But if anything should happen; if you should agree to disagree; it is you who must take the initiative. If you don't mean to marry her, you must tell her so plainly, and before you have given her a chance to refuse you. Do you understand?"
Fleetwell sprang to his feet as if he had received a blow. He was a young giant in physique, and he looked uncomfortably belligerent as he towered above the President's chair.
"By Jove, I do understand you, Cousin Francis, and I'm ashamed to admit it!" he burst out, wrathfully. "The men on my side of the family have all been gentlemen, so far as I know, and I'll not be the first to break the record. I shall do what my grandfather expected me to do—what Gertrude has a right to expect me to do—and in good faith; you may be very sure of that!" And having thus spoken his mind, he went out, leaving Mr. Francis Vennor to his own reflections, which were not altogether gladsome.