“Um-hm. Are you sure of that?”
“Am I sure?” indignantly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean are you sure that it’s because you choose, or because he does, or maybe, because his mother does?”
She turned angrily away. “If you came here to insult me—” she began. He interrupted her.
“No, no,” he protested gently. “Insultin’ you is the last thing I want to do. But, as your father did put you in my charge, I want you to bear with me while we talk this over together. Remember, Caroline, I ain’t bothered you a great deal lately. I shouldn’t now if I hadn’t thought ’twas necessary. So please don’t get mad, but answer me this: Do you care for this man you’ve promised to marry?”
This was a plain question. It should have been answered without the slightest hesitation. Moreover, the girl had expected him to ask it. Yet, for a moment, she did hesitate.
“I mean,” continued Captain Elisha, “do you care for him enough? Enough to live with him all your life, and see him every day, and be to him what a true wife ought to be? See him, not with his company manners on or in his automobile, but at the breakfast table, and when he comes home tired and cross, maybe. When you’ve got to be forbearin’ and forgivin’ and—”
“He is one of my oldest and best friends—” she interrupted. Her uncle went on without waiting for her to end the sentence.
“I know,” he said. “One of the oldest, that’s sure. But friendship, ’cordin’ to my notion, is somethin’ so small in comparison that it hardly counts in the manifest. Married folks ought to be friends, sartin sure; but they ought to be a whole lot more’n that. I’m an old bach, you say, and ain’t had no experience. That’s true; but I’ve been young, and there was a time when I made plans.... However, she died, and it never come to nothin’. But I know what it means to be engaged, the right kind of engagement. It means that you don’t count yourself at all, not a bit. You’re ready, each of you, to give up all you’ve got—your wishes, comfort, money and what it’ll buy, and your life, if it should come to that, for that other one. Do you care for Malcolm Dunn like that, Caroline?”
She answered defiantly.