“I shan’t break my heart, father.”
Canon Spratte shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know what the young men of the present day are coming to; they have no spirit and no enterprise. Anyhow, I’ve done my duty and you mustn’t be surprised whatever happens.”
“I wonder you don’t marry her yourself,” said Lionel, ironically.
“And would you have anything to say against my doing so?” retorted the Canon, not without a suspicion of temper. “Let me tell you that a man of fifty is in the very flower of his age. I flatter myself there are few men of your years who have half the vigour and energy that I have.”
He flung out of the room in a huff. His horse had been waiting for half-an-hour, and it was later than usual when he joined Gwendolen in the Park. Her face lit up, and from his own all sign of vexation had vanished.
“I’d given you up,” she said. “I thought you weren’t able to come.”
“Would you have been disappointed if I hadn’t?”
“Awfully!”
“You make me regret more than ever that I’m not twenty-five,” he said, without any beating about the bush.