“Why, you know,” he cried at last, “it never entered my head—Katherine’s marrying anybody. She’s very young—you’re very young too.”
“I don’t know,” said Philip, “I’m thirty—lots of men have families by then.”
“No, but you’re young though—both of you,” persisted Trenchard. “I don’t think I want Katherine to marry anybody.”
“Isn’t that rather selfish?” said Philip.
“Yes. I suppose it is,” said Trenchard, laughing, “but it’s natural.”
“It isn’t, you see,” said Philip eagerly, “as though I wanted to take her away to Russia or in any way deprive you of her. I know how much she is to all of you. She’s sure to marry some day, isn’t she? and it’s much better that she should marry someone who’s going to settle down here and live as you all do than someone who’d go right off with her.”
“It’s all right, I shouldn’t let him,” said Trenchard. He bent his eyes upon the eager lover, and again said to himself that he liked the young man. It would certainly be much pleasanter that Katherine should care about a fine healthy young fellow, a good companion after dinner, a good listener with a pleasant sense of humour, than that she should force into the heart of the family some impossibility—not that Katherine was likely to care about impossibilities, but you never knew; the world to-day was so full of impossibilities....
“I think we’ll send for Katherine,” he said.
He rang the bell, Rocket came, Katherine was summoned. As they waited Trenchard delivered himself of a random, half-humorous, half-conscious, half-unconscious discourse:
“You know, I like you—and I don’t often like modern young men. I wouldn’t mind you at all as a son-in-law, and you’d suit me as a son much better than Henry does. At least I think so, but then I know you very slightly, and I may dislike you intensely later on. We none of us know you, you see. We never had anybody drop in upon us as you did.... It doesn’t seem to me a bit like Katherine—and I don’t suppose she knows you any better than the rest of us do. She mayn’t like you later on. I can’t say that marriage is going to be what you think it is. You’re very unsettling. You won’t keep quiet and take things easily, and Katherine is sure not to like that. She’s as quiet as anything.... If it were Millie now. I suppose you wouldn’t care to have Millie instead? she’d suit you much better. Then, you know, the family won’t like your doing it. My wife won’t like it.” He paused, then, standing, his legs wide apart, his hands deep in his pockets, roared with laughter: “It will disturb them all—not that it won’t be good for them perhaps. You’re not to think though that I’ve given my consent—at any rate you’re not to marry her for a long time until we see what you’re like. I’m not to give her just to anyone who comes along, you know. I rather wish you’d stayed in Russia. It’s very unsettling.”