“And yet you speak as if you had something to go upon.”
“And so I have. I have my eyes and my intelligence. I have been making use of both during the last ten days.”
“Then am I expected to speak to him?”
“You are expected to do nothing of the sort,” said the baronet, starting from his listless attitude, and speaking in a determined manner; “it does not concern you at this stage of affairs. If you interfere you may just put your foot in it. Leave the young people to manage their own affairs; they understand it better than we do.”
“Not concern me!” echoed Raymond, protruding his eyebrows an inch beyond his nose; “and if this idea, that seems so clear to you, should seem clear to others, and nothing comes of it, how then? My child is compromised, and I am not to interfere, and it does not concern me?”
“You talk like an infant, Bourbonais!” said Sir Simon, changing his bantering tone to one of resentment. “Am I likely to encourage De Winton if I did not know him; if I were not certain that he is incapable of behaving otherwise than as a gentleman!”
“But you confess that he has not said anything to you; suppose he should never have thought of it at all?”
“Suppose that he’s a blind idiot! Is it likely that a young fellow like Clide should be thrown into daily society with a girl like Franceline and not fall in love with her? Tell me that!”
But that was precisely what Raymond could not see. His mental vision was not given to roaming beyond the narrow horizon of his own experience: this furnished him with no precedent for the case in point—a young man falling in love and choosing a wife without being told to do so by his family.
“If it were suggested to him,” he replied, dubiously, “no doubt he might; but no one has put it into his head; even you have not given him a hint to that effect.”