He burst into laughter.
“It’s ridiculous!” he said. “Why! you two have scarcely seen one another!”
Philip blushed, but looked up into Trenchard’s face with eyes that were strangely pleading for a man who could, at other times, be so firmly authoritative.
“I know that it must seem so to you,” he said. “But really we have met a good deal. I knew from the very beginning.... I’ll make her happy,” he ended, almost defiantly, as though he were challenging some unseen enemy.
“Well, state your case,” said Trenchard.
“I love her,” he stammered a little, then his voice cleared and he stared straight before him at Trenchard’s velvet waistcoat. “Of course there’ve been people in my life before, but I’ve never felt anything like this. I should like to tell you that my life is absolutely free from any entanglements—of any kind. I’m thirty and as fit as a fiddle. My share in the business and some other things come to about fifteen hundred a year. It’s all very decently invested, but, of course, I’d show you all that. I’m not bad about managing those things, although you mightn’t think so. I want to buy a little place somewhere in England and settle down—a little place with a bit of land. I do think I could make Katherine happy—I’d devote myself to that.”
“She cares for you?” asked Trenchard.
“Yes,” said Philip quite simply.
“Well, I’m damned,” said Trenchard.
This was not so rude as it appeared to be. He was not thinking about Philip at all—only about Katherine. She had fallen in love, she, Katherine, the staid, humorous, comfortable companion. He had not realised, until now, that he had always extracted much complacent comfort from the belief that she cared for him more than for any other member of the family. He did not know that every individual member extracted from Katherine the same comfort. He looked at Philip. What did she see in the man to lead her to such wild courses? He was nice enough to look at, to listen to—but to love? It seemed to him that his quiet daughter must have been indulging in melodrama.