“Indian? Indian? Good God—a red nigger!” cried General Armour harshly, starting to his feet.
“An Indian? a wild Indian?” Mrs. Armour whispered faintly, as she dropped into a chair.
“And she’ll be here in two or three days,” fluttered Marion hysterically.
Meanwhile Richard had hastily picked up the Times. “She is due here the day after to-morrow,” he said deliberately. “Frank is as decisive as he is rash. Well, it’s a melancholy tit-for-tat.”
“What do you mean by tit-for-tat?” cried his father angrily.
“Oh, I mean that—that we tried to hasten Julia’s marriage—with the other fellow, and he is giving us one in return; and you will all agree that it’s a pretty permanent one.”
The old soldier recovered himself, and was beside his wife in an instant. He took her hand. “Don’t fret about it, wife,” he said; “it’s an ugly business, but we must put up with it. The boy was out of his head. We are old, now, my dear, but there was a time when we should have resented such a thing as much as Frank—though not in the same fashion, perhaps—not in the same fashion.” The old man pressed his lips hard to keep down his emotion.
“Oh, how could he—how could he!” said his mother: “we meant everything for the best.”
“It is always dangerous business meddling with lovers’ affairs,” rejoined Richard. “Lovers take themselves very seriously indeed, and—well, here the thing is! Now, who will go and fetch her from Liverpool? I should say that both my father and my mother ought to go.”
Thus Richard took it for granted that they would receive Frank’s Indian wife into their home. He intended that, so far as he was concerned, there should be no doubt upon the question from the beginning.