“You leave that to me,” said the old man; but he chuckled more than ever.
Katherine did not quite understand her father, but she concluded that he was not angry—that he could not be going to receive the suitor unfavourably, that there was nothing to indicate a serious shock of any kind. She followed Stella upstairs, and went into her room to comfort her with this assurance; for which I cannot say that Stella was at all grateful.
“Not angry? Why should he be angry?” the girl cried. “Serious? I never expected him to be serious. What could he find to object to in Charlie? I am not anxious about it at all.”
Katherine withdrew into her own premises, feeling herself much humbled and set down. But somehow she could not make herself happy about that chuckle of Mr. Tredgold’s. It was not a pleasant sound to hear.
Sir Charles Somers felt it very absurd that he should own a tremor in his big bosom as he walked up the drive, all fringed with its rare plants in every shade of autumn colour. It was not a long drive, and the house by no means a “place,” but only a seaside villa, though (as Mr. Tredgold hoped) the costliest house in the neighbourhood. The carriage had left fresh marks upon the gravel, which were in a kind of a way the footsteps of his beloved, had the wooer been sentimental enough to think of that. What he did think of was whether the old fellow would see him at once and settle everything before lunch, comfortably, or whether he would walk into a family party with the girls hanging about, not thinking it worth while to take off their hats before that meal was over. There might be advantage in this. It would put a little strength into himself, who was unquestionably feeling shaky, ridiculous as that was, and would be the better, after his walk, of something to eat; and it might also put old Tredgold in a better humour to have his luncheon before this important interview. But, on the other hand, there was the worry of the suspense. Somers did not know whether he was glad or sorry when he was told that Mr. Tredgold was in his library, and led through the long passages to that warm room which was at the back of the house. A chair was placed for him just in front of the fire as he had foreseen, and the day, though damp, was warm, and he had heated himself with his long walk.
“Sit down, sit down, Sir Charles,” said the old gentleman, whose writing-table was placed at one side, where he had the benefit of the warmth without the glare of the fire. And he leant amicably and cheerfully across the corner of the table, and said, “What can I do for you this morning?” rubbing his hands. He looked so like a genial money-lender before the demands of the borrower are exposed to him, that Sir Charles, much more accustomed to that sort of thing than to a prospective father-in-law, found it very difficult not to propose, instead of for Stella, that Mr. Tredgold should do him a little bill. He got through his statement of the case in a most confused and complicated way. It was indeed possible, if it had not been for the hint received beforehand, that the old man would not have picked up his meaning; as it was, he listened patiently with a calm face of amusement, which was the most aggravating thing in the world.
“Am I to understand,” he said at last, “that you are making me a proposal for Stella, Sir Charles? Eh? It is for Stella, is it, and not for any other thing? Come, that’s a good thing to understand each other. Stella is a great pet of mine. She is a very great pet. There is nobody in the world that I think like her, or that I would do so much for.”
“M’ own feelings—to a nicety—but better expressed,” Sir Charles said.
“That girl has had a deal of money spent on her, Sir Charles, first and last; you wouldn’t believe the money that girl has cost me, and I don’t say she ain’t worth it. But she’s a very expensive article and has been all her life. It’s right you should look that in the face before we get any forwarder. She has always had everything she has fancied, and she’ll cost her husband a deal of money, when she gets one, as she has done me.”
This address made Somers feel very small, for what could he reply? To have been quite truthful, the only thing he could have said would have been, “I hope, sir, you will give her so much money that it will not matter how expensive she is;” but this he could not say. “I know very well,” he stammered, “a lady—wants a lot of things;—hope Stella—will never—suffer, don’t you know?—through giving her to me.”