“You have not displeased me yet. But you will displease me very much, if you refuse to grant the request I have come to make of you.”
“Then I will do the best I can to avert your threatened displeasure by promising to grant your request beforehand.”
“Ah, my dear, if I were inclined to take an unfair advantage, I would rejoice exceedingly over that promise. As it is, I am terribly afraid that you may retract it. Do you happen to have heard of my intention to get married, if I can persuade a certain lady to accept me?”
“Yes, Lady Elizabeth spoke of it this morning. But she would not give us any clew to the lady’s identity, and I, at least, am very curious about her. I hope she is a nice old lady, and that she will like me. You see, she will be a sort of grandmother-in-law to me—with your permission.”
“Grandmother fiddlesticks! She isn’t old enough to be anybody’s grandmother. Can’t you guess who it is?”
“Why, no. How should I? I do not know so very many of your friends, and I really do not know anybody that would seem to be a suitable Countess of Greatlands.”
“Well, it seems to me that for all-round obtuseness you beat everything! Do you think it likely that I would seek a private interview with you, in order to tell you of my intention to ask some one else to marry me?”
“Then why have you come to see me?”
“Why? Only to ask you to take pity on a lonely old man, and marry him. Look here, child, don’t jump up and look angry, for I really mean it. You are the only woman I would care to marry, and if you refuse to marry me I will have nobody else.”
“Good gracious! how can a girl marry her grandfather? Do you forget that you are my stepmother’s father?”