An acute silence was terminated by Joe’s “Won’t you sit down, sir?”
Jack sat down; and then Mary’s father, torn between stern disapproval and the humane feelings of a host, invited the young man solemnly to a glass of beer.
“Thank you very much,” said Jack, with admirable gravity.
Murmuring “excuse me a minute,” Joe went to draw the beer. Left alone the young man tried to arrange his thoughts; also he took further stock of his surroundings. He had yet to overcome a powerful feeling of surprise. It was hard to believe that Princess Bedalia, in the view of her fiancé, the very last word in modern young women, should have sprung from such a milieu as Number Five, Beaconsfield Villas. It was a facer. Yet somehow the chasm between Mary and her male parent seemed almost to enhance her value. She was so superb an original that she defied the laws of nature.
The young man was engulfed in an odd train of speculation when Mary’s father returned with the beer. He poured out two glasses, gave one to the visitor, took one himself, and after a solemn “Good health, sir!” solemnly drank it.
Jack returned the “Good health!” and followed the rest of the ritual. And then feeling rather more his own man, he made an effort to come to business. But it was only possible to do that by means of a directness verging upon the indelicate.
“Sergeant Kelly,” he said, “have you any objection to my marrying Mary?”
No doubt the form of the question was a little unwise. At least it exposed the young man to the prompt rejoinder:
“I know nothing whatever about you, sir.”
“My name is Dinneford”—he could not refrain from laughing a little at the portentous gravity of a prospective father-in-law. “And I think I can claim that I have always passed as respectable.”