"I need a lot of money," I said; "sooner or later you'll know why. So I may as well tell you."
My father's fine weather-beaten face of a country squire expressed an interest at once frankly affectionate and tinged with a kind of detached cynicism.
"I am going to run off with Lucy Fulton," I said.
"I supposed that was it," said my father, without evincing the least surprise.
"You did?"
"Oh, we old fellows put an ear to the ground now and then," he explained; "and sometimes sleep with one eye open. Punch's advice to the young couple about to marry was 'Don't.' My advice to you and Lucy is double don't. Why not give yourselves a year to think it all over, as John Fulton so sanely and generously suggests?"
Astonishment at my father's superhuman knowledge of events must have showed in my face. Still smiling with frank affection, he said, "John put me in touch with the whole situation before he left Aiken. The year of probation was my suggestion to him."
"But Lucy and I can't agree."
"Then you can't. Do you sail, fly, entrain, or row—and when?"
"We sail, father, next Wednesday."