Miltoun answered: “I've wanted to from the moment I first saw her.”
Lord Valleys, almost as good a judge of a man and a situation as of a horse or a pointer dog, leaned back in his chair, and said with faint sarcasm:
“My dear fellow, it's good of you to have told me this; though, to be quite frank, it's a piece of news I would rather not have heard.”
A dusky flush burned slowly up in Miltoun's cheeks. He had underrated his father; the man had coolness and courage in a crisis.
“What is your objection, sir?” And suddenly he noticed that a wafer in Lord Valleys' hand was quivering. This brought into his eyes no look of compunction, but such a smouldering gaze as the old Tudor Churchman might have bent on an adversary who showed a sign of weakness. Lord Valleys, too, noticed the quivering of that wafer, and ate it.
“We are men of the world,” he said.
Miltoun answered: “I am not.”
Showing his first real symptom of impatience Lord Valleys rapped out:
“So be it! I am.”
“Yes?”, said Miltoun.