“Yes, I would, of course,” she answered readily. “I’d tell you anything—though that’s not true, because I told Dicky weeks ago that he was getting—oh well, you know—quite tame—and she thought you would be pleased, but I wouldn’t let her tell you because—I didn’t want to spoil it.”
“H’m,” said Cyril.
“I mean I liked feeling that none of you knew him properly.”
“H’m,” said Cyril again.
“Well, what’s the matter?”
“A powerful apple,” he observed. “Power, my dear child, power.”
“Oh, Father,” she sighed, “you’re not going on again about that dreadful old Eden, are you? I do wish no one had ever told you the story. You think women are always tempting men to this day.”
“So they are when it comes to marriage,” he asserted. “Don’t you make any mistake about that.”
Evangeline felt desperate, as if she were caught and entangled. “Do you mean that men never fall in love with them?” Tears gathered in her eyes. She had had some weary work at the last stand of Hatton’s doubts, and now her father, whom she loved and believed in as a friend, was going to take the top off the morning of her happiness.
Cyril understood and repented. “No,” he said, “Hatton loves you—but——” he looked at her inquiring face and decided to revise what he was going to say. “Have you ever heard of spontaneous combustion? It’s a troublesome thing, but I should have more faith in your sex if they suffered from it in their emotions. They think too hard for my taste. But that’s all. Hatton is the devil of a hard thinker himself, so you had better leave him to scratch his head, and say, ‘yes, dear,’ like your mother does when I give her the benefit of my wisdom. Then all you need is to go out and do just the opposite, and say afterwards that that was what you thought he meant. Don’t incense him at the time, is the great thing. ‘The Housewife’s Vade Mecum,’ as I read somewhere, or ‘Little Polly’s first steps in efficiency’.” He kissed her on his way across the room to turn on some more light. “Just to wish you luck, dear, and to show there’s no ill-feeling.”