“Then I don't see much use wastin' time, do you? Life's too uncertain to go postponin' happiness when it's right within your reach. Kedzie's father and I ought to be gettin' back home, and I'd feel a heap more comfortable if I could know my poor little chick was safe in the care of a good man.”
The possibility of getting Mr. and Mrs. Thropp out of town soon was the one bright thought in Dyckman's mind. He felt compelled to say:
“Then let us have the ceremony, by all means. We shall have to wait awhile, I suppose, for decency's sake.”
“Decency!” said Mrs. Thropp, managerially. “My Kedzie hadn't lived with the man for a long while. Nobody but us knows that she ever did live with him. He'd abandoned her, and when he came back it was only to try to get money out of her. I can't see that she has any call to worry about decency's sake. He's done her harm enough. She can't do him any good by keepin' you waitin'.”
“Just as you think best, Mrs. Thropp,” said Dyckman. He began to smile in spite of himself. He was thinking how many mothers and daughters had tried to get him to the altar, not because they loved him, but because they loved his father's money and fame. Jim had dodged them all and made a kind of sport of it. And now he was cornered and captured by this old barbarian with her movie-beauty daughter who was a widow and wouldn't wear weeds.
Mrs. Thropp saw Dyckman's smile, but did not dare to ask its origin. She asked, instead:
“Would you be having a church wedding, do you think?”
“Indeed not,” said Dyckman, with such incision that Mrs. Thropp felt it best not to risk a debate.
“Just a quiet wedding, then?”
“As quiet as possible, if you don't mind.”