"Assuming it's as we fear—I understand, I understand."
"Well, then, you see, I'll not be here myself to keep Frank and Jean from doing foolish-like things if they happen to have a mind to; and they're not like you and their sisters. You've all chosen sensibly, but they're in a kind of way different. I ought to have had them educated at home."
"What I've always said," his son agreed.
"Anyhow, it's too late now, and what I'll just have to do is this—introduce a clause making them forfeit their shares if they marry without your consent in the next five years."
"Would ten not be safer?" suggested Andrew.
"We'll say seven, then. And of course you'll not withhold your consent unreasonably? I'll trust you for that."
Andrew's attitude expressed to such perfection the confidence that might be reposed in him that his father shed him a satisfied smile.
"And now," said he, "I wonder had you not better get me my will?—or we might wait till to-morrow, and see how I'm feeling then."
If the junior partner had looked grave before, he looked funereal now.
"Your mind's clear now," he said. "I wouldn't put it off."