“Mmph,” he answered, and the answer might be interpreted, by a person who knew him, in any one of half a dozen ways.
“Such is the case,” she went on, quite unafraid. “That caveman over there in the blue shirt”—she pointed—“he’s the nominee. We’re engaged.”
“I can’t plead surprise, kid,” he stated, taking on for the moment her bantering tone. “The report that you two had come to a sort of understanding has been in active circulation on this reservation for the past forty-eight hours or so—maybe longer.”
Her eyebrows went up. “I don’t get you,” she said. “Who circulated it?”
“You did, for one,” he told her. “And he did, for another. I may be failing, what with increasing age and all, but I’m not more than half blind yet. Have you been to your mother with this piece of news?”
“I came to you first. I—I”—for the first time she faltered an instant—“I figured you might be able to get the correct slant a little quicker then she would. This is only the curtain-raiser. I’m saving the big scene with the melodramatic touches for her. I have a feeling that she may be just a trifle difficult. So I picked on something easy to begin with.”
“I see,” he said. “Kind of an undress rehearsal, eh?” He held her off at arm’s length from him, studying her face hungrily. “But what’s the reason your young man didn’t come along with you or ahead of you, in fact? In my time it generally was the young man that brought the message to Garcia.”
“He wanted to come—he wasn’t scared. I wouldn’t let him. I told him I’d been knowing you longer than he had and I could handle the job better by myself. Well, that’s your cue. What’s it going to be, daddy—the glad hand of approval and the parental bless you my children, bless you, or a little line of that go-forth-ungrateful-hussy-and-never-darken-my-doors-again stuff? Only, we’re a trifle shy on doors around here.”
He drew her to him and spoke downward at the top of her cropped head, she snuggling her face against his wool-clad breast.
“Baby,” he said, “when all’s said and done, the whole thing’s up to you, way I look at it. I don’t suppose there ever was a man who really loved his daughter but what he figured that, taking one thing with another, she was too good for any man on earth. I’m not saying now what sort of a husband I’d try to pick out for you if the choice had been left to me. I’d probably want to keep you an old maid so’s I could have you around and then I’d secretly despise myself for doing it, too. What I’m saying is this: If you’re certain you know your own mind and if you’ve decided that this boy is the boy you want, why what more is there for me to do except maybe to ask you just one or two small questions?”