"Your wonderful attitude," he said. "She meant you to marry Norah."
"Why—on earth—should she have wanted that?"
"Well—because I worried about you, and she wanted me to be happy. And because she worried about you, and wanted you to be happy. And because she worried about the Kid, and wanted her to be happy. And because she wanted the rest of them to be happy too."
I said I didn't know what I'd done to be so happy.
"You've done nothing. You don't owe it to yourself that you're happy. My dear fellow, you've been watched, and looked after, and protected for three and a half years with an incessant care. If you'd been left to yourself you'd have bungled the whole business. Either you wouldn't have proposed to her at all, or you'd have proposed three times running when it was too late."
I pointed out to him that I hadn't proposed three times running, neither was I too late.
"All the same," he said, "you wouldn't have thought of it if she hadn't gone to the Thesigers. And she wouldn't have gone to the Thesigers if Viola hadn't got the Thesigers to ask her. It was a put-up job. I tell you, my son, you've been guided and guarded. Why, you didn't even see that the child was grown up till I drew your attention to it."
There was no use pretending I liked it. I didn't.
I said, "Thank you. If a thing comes off it's your doing, and if it doesn't it's mine."
He said it looked like that.