“Knowing you, Mattie, I presume that you’ve conducted researches into his desirability as a nephew-in-law?”
“Well, shouldn’t I? Goodness knows, we don’t lead a conventional life in this family, 210 and I don’t chaperone her. I reproach myself a little with that. When Mrs. Goodyear wanted to take her up and put her into the Fortnightly, it wasn’t so much Eleanor’s disinclination as my own laziness about getting up gowns and paddling about paying calls which kept me back—and that’s God’s truth.”
“And these penitential exercises in detective work—what have they brought forth?”
“He’s a little careless morally, I think. He’s had too much conviviality about the Club. I’m afraid he’s blossoming over young. They can say all they want about wild oats, but in this city it’s a mistake to sow them all at once. That’s one reason why I’ve been so good to him. I flatter myself that a house like this is a moral influence on him.”
“It’s all a concern for his soul with you, then?”
“No. Frankly, I like him. Everyone likes him. He’s a dear. But as to Eleanor—”
The Judge had risen and taken off his skull cap.
“Well, she has run a ranch and she’s travelled alone to Europe and back, and she’s 211 saved the soul if not the body of a father. And I wonder whether a girl who’s all that to her credit can’t be trusted to deal with the problem of an undesirable though attractive young man—”
“If I were only sure he was undesirable!”
“It is according,” responded the Judge, “to your definition of undesirability. If you mean worldly circumstances, you needn’t fear for Bertram Chester. He resigns from my firm this month.”