“Yes,” she said, nodding, “it’s a case, I guess.”
“It ought to be satisfactory,” he answered. “Pat Duffy, the father of those boys, was one of the finest fellers I ever knew. He was shift boss on the Rey del Monte in seventy-one when I was the superintendent. He got out of Virginia with his pile, didn’t lose it like the others. He had an easy three million when he came down here and bought the Bristed house on Pine Street. And Jack’s the best of his children. Maggie, who married the English baronet, was a nice sort of girl, but she’s never come back, and Terry’s smart enough, but not the kind you can bank on. Jack’s a good, straight boy. Cornelia couldn’t do better.”
“That’s what I think,” said the mother, who, however, looked grave and worried. “Cornelia’s thirty. It’s time for her to settle, and she’ll make a good wife. They’ll live here, too. There’ll be no kicking up of their heels and going off to Europe or New York and thinking themselves too good to come back to California, like Maggie Duffy and her baronet. I want them here. I want to see some grandchildren round this house before I die. I want to know where Con’s money is going to.”
She sighed, and it was obvious that her heart was heavy.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s a good marriage and I’m pleased at it. Jack’s a Roman Catholic but you can’t have everything down here in this world.”
The Ryans were Protestants, almost the only prominent Irish-American family in San Francisco which belonged to that church. Cornelius Ryan had been a North-country man, and went out with the Orange men when they paraded. He had been firm in his faith and so had his wife, and with the Hibernian’s violent devotion to creed they had made public their antipathy to the Church of Rome and their hopes that their children would not make alliances with its members.
“Oh well,” said Cannon with a shrug of vague tolerance, “a man’s beliefs don’t matter. With a woman it’s a different thing. She brings up the children and takes her religion hard. Jack won’t interfere with Cornelia that way.”
“Perhaps not,” said the mother. There was a slight pause and then she said with a sigh,
“Well, thank God, one of my children’s going to marry as I want.”
She was gazing into the fire and did not notice the quick look, sly and piercing, that her companion shot at her. The conversation had suddenly, without any effort of his, fallen upon the subject to which he had intended directing it.