“Yes, sir,” Everard replied, closing the book and facing his father with an unaccountable dread that something unpleasant was coming.
“It’s never my way to beat round the bush,” the judge began; “I come to the point at once, and so I want to know if you and Bee have settled it yet?”
“Settled what?” Everard asked; and his father replied:
“Don’t be a fool and put on girlish airs. Marrying is as much a matter of business as anything else, and we may discuss it just the same. You don’t suppose me in my dotage, that I have not seen what is in everybody’s mouth,—your devotion to Beatrice and her readiness to receive it; wait till I’m through,” he continued, authoritatively, as he saw Everard about to speak. “I like the girl; have always liked her, though she is a wild, saucy thing, but that will correct itself in time. Your mother believed in her fully, and she knew what was in women. She hoped you would marry Bee some day, and what I wish to say is this: you may think you must wait till you get your profession, but there is no need of that at all. You are twenty-two. You have matured wonderfully the last two years, and I may say improved, too; time was when I could hardly speak peaceably of you for the scrapes you were eternally getting into, but you dropped all that after your poor mother died. I was proud of you at Commencement. I am proud of you now, and I want you to marry at once. The house needs a mistress, and I have fixed upon Christmas as the proper time for the wedding, so if you have not settled it with Bee, do so at once.”
“But, father,” Everard gasped, with a face as white as snow, “it is impossible that I should marry Beatrice. I have never for a moment considered such a thing.”
“The deuce you haven’t,” the judge exclaimed, beginning to get angry. “Pray, let me ask you why you have been racing and chasing after her ever since you came home, if you never considered the thing, as you say? Others have considered it, if you have not. Everybody thinks you are to marry her, and, by George, I won’t have her compromised. No, I won’t! She could sue you for breach of promise, and recover, too, with all this dancing, and prancing, and scurripping round the country. If you have not thought of it, you must think of it now. You surely like the girl.”
He stopped to take breath, and Everard answered him:
“Yes, father, I like her very much, but not in that way,—not as a wife, and I never can. It is impossible.”
“Why impossible? What do you mean?” the judge said, loudly and angrily. “Is there somebody else? Is it that yellow-haired hussy who made those eyes at me, because, if it is, by Jove, you are no son of mine, and you may as well understand it first as last. I’ll never sanction that, never! Why don’t you answer me, and not stare at me so like an idiot? Do you like that white-livered woman better than Beatrice? Do you think her a fitter wife for you and companion for Rosamond?”
Everard had opened his lips to tell the truth, but what his father said of Josephine sealed them tight; but he answered his father’s last questions, and said: