“Why haven't you said anything about it to us—to Mrs. Fosdick or me or your people here? You must excuse these personal questions. As I have just said to Captain Snow, Madeline is our only child, and her happiness and welfare mean about all there is in life to her mother and me. So, naturally, the man she is going to marry is an important consideration. You and I have never met before, so the quickest way of reaching an understanding between us is by the question route. You get my meaning?”
“Yes, sir, I guess I do.”
“Good! Then we'll go ahead. Why have you two kept it a secret so long?”
“Because—well, because we knew we couldn't marry yet a while, so we thought we had better not announce it for the present.”
“Oh! . . . And the idea that perhaps Mrs. Fosdick and I might be slightly interested didn't occur to you?”
“Why, yes, sir, it did. But,—but we thought it best not to tell you until later.”
“Perhaps the suspicion that we might not be overjoyed by the news had a little weight with you, eh? Possibly that helped to delay the—er—announcement?”
“No, sir, I—I don't think it did.”
“Oh, don't you! Perhaps you thought we WOULD be overjoyed?”
“No, sir. We didn't think so very much about it. Well, that's not quite true. Madeline felt that her mother—and you, too, sir, I suppose, although she didn't speak as often of you in that way—she felt that her mother would disapprove at first, and so we had better wait.”