Forbes scrambled up. He wrung Luke's hand.
"Well, well," he said, "you are to be congratulated!"
"I am glad you think so," said Luke, "for you know the girl better than I do."
"The girl? I know her better——" Forbes's voice rose. "You don't mean—— You don't mean to say——"
"Yes," Luke nodded. "It is luck, isn't it? It's Betty."
"Bless my soul!" Forbes brought his left hand down on Luke's right shoulder. "Bless my soul! My little girl! Huber, you—you rather knock the wind out of me."
He said all the conventional things; his manner showed all the proper surprise; and both men understood that he had been expecting this news for a long time and wanting it.
"Huber," he said, "of course this is sudden, and of course I'm an old fool not to have got over considering Betty a child—a mere baby—but, now you're here with the announcement, I'm quite certain that, out of all the men who've been tagging after her, you're the one that I'd want for a son-in-law."
Luke again mumbled his thanks.
"You're not standing still," pursued Forbes: "you're going ahead. You have a great deal to you, and Betty's the very girl to make you make the best of yourself"—Forbes's voice abandoned the commonplace note and fell to the note of genuine feeling—"then there's your interest in the Business. Huber, I've always regretted that I didn't have a son to leave the Business to, as my father left it to me and his father to him. If you'd married somebody else, and Betty had married some chap that had no interest in it, the Business might have gone over to you eventually, and so on to children of another stock than mine; whereas, now"—he looked around Luke to the doorway—"Betty!" he said.