"She's old enough to take care of herself, anyway," he said, beginning abruptly to refill a foul briar from a small tin box that he unexpectedly evolved from the pocket of his trousers.
"That's hardly the point, is it?" said the Prince, with a deference he didn't feel.
"What is the point?" asked Klondyke, striking a wooden match on the sole of his shoe.
"Mother has mentioned the matter to Uncle George, and he thinks the chap ought not to come here."
"Oh, that's rot," said Klondyke coolly. "That's like the old fool."
"I'm afraid I agree ... with Uncle George, I mean ... and so does Silvia."
"What's Ted Ambrose think about it? He generally knows the lie of a country."
"He'd give no opinion to mother. But he was certainly worried."
Klondyke resumed his frown. He felt rather at sea. He was, in spite of birth and training, a man of primal instincts; he looked at things in an elemental way. Either a man was a good chap or he was not. If he was a good chap, no matter where he may have started from in the race of life, he was fitted by nature to marry his sister. If he was not a good chap, no matter what else he was or might be, he didn't count anyway.
"You see"—the plaintive voice of the Prince broke in upon Klondyke's unsubtle analysis of the situation—"no one knows anything about him. Ambrose sprang him on us from nowhere, as you might say. Of course, he's a man with a sort of reputation ... in his own line ... but he's not one of us ... and it wouldn't have so much mattered if he had been a gentleman."