“Well, yes.”
“Poor fellow! She knew better than that, you may be sure. At any rate, her mother did.”
“What Mrs. Pasmer doesn't know isn't probably worth knowing,” said Dan, with an amused sense of her omniscience.
“I thought so,” sighed his mother, smiling too. “And now you begin to find out that it concerns the families in all their branches on both sides.”
“Oh, if it stopped at the families and their ramifications! But it seems to take in society and the general public.”
“So it does—more than you can realise. You can't get married to yourself alone, as young people think; and if you don't marry happily, you sin against the peace and comfort of the whole community.”
“Yes, that's what I'm chiefly looking out for now. I don't want any of those people in Central Africa to suffer. That's the reason I want to marry Alice at the earliest opportunity. But I suppose there'll have to be a Mavering embassy to the high contracting powers of the other part now?”
“Your father and one of the girls had better go down.”
“Yes?”
“And invite Mr. and Mrs. Pasmer and their daughter to come up here.”