Mr. Morton nodded.
In two eager steps Jack was across the room wringing his father’s hand. “You don’t know how relieved I am!”
“Why should you think I’d object after really meeting Mrs. Grayson?”
“Call her Mary, dad.”
“Mary, then, with your permission. Plainly Mary is a young woman of exceptional sense, and I am sure she and I will understand each other splendidly.”
Jack crossed swiftly to Mary. “Mary!” he exclaimed, seizing her hands, “Mary!” And then in a lower voice, though Clifford heard him: “It’s all coming true, Mary,—it’s all coming true!”
The Golden Doors had marvelously swung open!
Mr. Morton was speaking again: “Let’s get back to sensible talk—which is what I came here for. I wish to commend your discretion in this matter. Boys will be boys, but usually they’re boys in such a noisy way. I’m sure the discretion was yours, Mary.”
“Discretion? I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary.
“I mean that you have done everything so well,” he continued pleasantly. “You’ve not laid the affair open to instant recognition by thoughtlessly flaunting yourself about with Jack. You’ve even taken the precaution of wearing the conventional rings. It’s the Riverside Drive affair done in the best Riverside-Drive-affair manner.”