"My mind was so filled with that Northern Atlantic matter last month when you talked of your prince," he said, "that I don't think I did the question justice. It was too far off—and the railroad mess was so confoundedly near. Now then, let's have it."
"How—what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Wellington, a bit uneasily.
"What have you been trying to do, Belle?"
"Why, I have n't been trying to do anything. The situation has shaped itself without any effort on my part."
"You mean Anne loves the Russian! Bosh! How long has he been here—this is the third day!" The room rang with his laughter.
"I did not say that she loved him. I said they seemed to be getting on."
Mr. Wellington clasped his big hands over his knees and gazed at the floor. "Belle," he said, after a few minutes, "the idea of Anne living away off in a foreign country does n't swallow easily. Life is too short—and, Belle, I don't think you have ever loved Anne quite as I have."
Mrs. Wellington thought for a moment of the adoration which this big man had always held for their daughter—an emotion in no way conflicting with his conjugal devotion and yet equally tremendous, and smiled without a trace of jealousy.
"Yes, I think that is true," she said. "Yet of course you cannot question my love for her. I certainly would be the last to thwart her ambitions."
"Nor I," returned Wellington with a sigh. "And yet, Belle, so far as you are concerned, you don't need such a match. Your position certainly needs no assurance, either here or abroad. We are not in the business of buying foreign titles, you know. We don't have to. Besides, we thrashed all that out when Anne was a child. The girl must marry, of course; for years that has hung over me like a bad dream. But it's natural and right and for the best. But, Belle, since she has grown up and her marriage has become a question of narrowing time—especially since that French nobleman, De Joinville, was buzzing around last year—I have had an ambition for grandchildren that can say 'grandpa' in a language I understand. That is the way I feel about it."