“Well, perhaps one should not look at such a matter from the standpoint of one’s private feelings. You do not see so much of me nowadays as you once did, Severn; if you did you would know that the home—the hearth—ah—ah!”
“We do not see so much of each other; but our children—our girls, you know that they are inseparable—West,—you are the father of a girl whom I have come to understand, and to understand such a nature as hers is to love her. I love her as I do my own child; and I am here to talk to you about her.”
“Ah, Severn, she is a good girl—a noble girl, but—well, frankly, I am rather glad that this affair with Clifton has come to an end. It will be years before Clifton is anything but the merest wire-puller—a paltry provincial sort of jobbing jerrymander—that was—he will be—not without his uses, of course—those organisms have their uses to us; but I think that my daughter has every right to look for some one—some one, in short, more in her own rank in life. You heard, of course, that Clifton had been a fool—that it would be impossible for us to entertain any longer the idea of——”
“I saw Josephine yesterday. I am quite of your way of thinking in this matter. Clifton behaved badly from the first—inducing her to do an underhand thing—I know that her better nature recoiled from it. I cannot understand how you ever came to give your consent, West.”
“Well, you see, my dear Severn, I believed that she loved him, and a girl’s heart—ah, Severn, Severn, when the prospect of one’s daughter’s happiness——”
“That is what I want to talk to you about, West—her future happiness—and yours.”
“If you are going to talk to me about that man from Australia—or is it New Zealand?—whom she fancies she loves, you may spare yourself the trouble, my dear friend—I decline to discuss a man so obviously—flagrantly ineligible.”
“I have found out a good deal about him during the past month, and I have heard nothing except what is good.”
“Good—good—what signifies goodness—I mean, of course, that my daughter is now in a very different position from that she occupied six months ago. The best families in the land might receive her with open arms. But a Colonial—well, of course, they did very well in the war, the Colonials, and the mother country is proud of them—yes, quite proud of them. But for my daughter to marry a man who does not know his own father——”
“I know all about his father, though he does not.”