“It shouldn’t?”
“That’s just what I meant. If a man is clean of character, and has grit and snap in him, I don’t know that one could reasonably look for anything further. I can’t see how the fact that his grandfather was this or that is going to affect him. The man we’re talking of has grit. I offered him promotion, and he wouldn’t take it.”
“Ah,” said his companion, “didn’t that strike you as significant?”
“Well,” he admitted slowly, “as a matter of fact, it didn’t; but it does now.”
He sat silent for almost a minute, with wrinkled forehead, while Mrs. Kinnaird watched him covertly. Then, feeling the silence embarrassing, she made another effort.
“Supposing that my fancies concerning what might perhaps come about are justified?” she suggested.
Stirling faced the question.
“Well,” he said, “whether they’re justified or not is a thing we don’t know yet; but I want to say this. I have never had reason to worry over my daughter, and it seems to me a sure thing that she’s not going to give me cause for it now. When she chooses her husband, she’ll choose the right one, and she’ll have her father’s money; it won’t matter very much whether he’s rich or not. All I ask is that he should be straight and clean of mind, and nervy, and I guess Ida will see to that. When she tells me that she is satisfied, I’ll just try to make the most of him.”
He broke off for a moment, and laughed softly.