Well, certain things that I've seen lead me to suppose
that he did that in order to please your daughter.
Did you understand it that way?"
"It's quite likely, in one sense," returned the General.
He spoke with much deliberation now, weighing all his words.
"He may have thought it would please her; he may not have
known how little my poor affairs concerned her."
"Well, then," pursued Thorpe, argumentatively, "he had
an object in pleasing her. Let me ask the question--
did he want to marry her?"
"Most men want to marry her," was the father's non-
committal response. His moustache lifted itself in the
semblance of a smile, but the blue eyes above remained
coldly vigilant.
"Well--I guess that's so too," Thorpe remarked.
He made a fleeting mental note that there was something
about the General which impelled him to think and talk
more like an American than ever. "But was HE specially
affected that way?"
"I think," said Kervick, judicially, "I think it was
understood that if he had been free to marry a penniless wife,
he would have wished to marry her."
"Do you know," Thorpe began again, with a kind of diffident
hesitation--"do you happen to have formed an idea--supposing
that had been the case--would she have accepted him?"
"Ah, there you have me," replied the other. "Who can tell
what women will accept, and what they will refuse? My daughter
refused Lord Lingfield--and he is an Under-Secretary,
and will be Earl Chobham, and a Cabinet Minister,
and a rich man.
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