"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical by its excess, "would you really marry Adèle?"
"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.
"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."
And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the last few days.
At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of Adèle. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any less so?
"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow, if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.
"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your mother!"
"I hope I do," said Phil,—"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to be had for the asking."
"Aha! the pinch lies there, eh?" said the Squire, and he said it in better humor than he would have said it ten days before. "What's the trouble, Philip?"
"Well, sir, I think she always had a tenderness for Reuben; I think she loves him now in her heart."