"He could not swim, and he was paralysed with fright." Justin lowered his eyes, for there was a mist on his glasses. Ah, that meeting between father and daughter when the boat came in! He had turned aside quickly from it, but not quickly enough to escape the expression in the eyes of the half-fainting man as he held out his arms to his recovered daughter.
"Did you make up your mind then to marry her?" pursued his mother, in a voice so harsh that it was almost a croak.
"No; I had already done so."
"You were pretty quick about it."
"I am not always slow."
"And she jumped at the chance."
"Not exactly," and, throwing back his head, he stared at her through his glasses. "If you will recall some of your own experiences when in love, you may remember some of the ways of your sex."
The obstinate face opposite him did not relax. No; although she had twice been wooed and successfully won, his mother had never felt in the slightest degree the influence of the gentle passion. She had not the remotest conception of the strength of a loving attachment except as she had felt it to a limited extent in the guise of maternal affection. However, she was not going to tell her son this, so she said, commandingly, "Go on with your story."
"There isn't much more to tell. The experience in the sea had given her a shock, and she was pale and quiet for a day or two, then she was all right and was about with her father all the time, and I—of course I was there."
He stopped in a somewhat lame fashion, and Mrs. Prymmer said, scornfully, "I guess her father made the match."