Part 34 (1/2)
”An engagement?”
”What's an engagement? Speaking as a lawyer of many years' standing, I may tell you candidly that engagements, and agreements, and bargains are simply devices for keeping rascals from swindling one another. If honest men agree, they don't need a stamped bit of paper; and if they disagree, where's the point in leas.h.i.+ng them together, like a couple of growling dogs? And the case is a thousand times stronger when it comes to a man and a girl. I was only afraid I should lose a charming daughter-in-law, and now you've taken that weight off my mind. I can't tell you how happy I feel!”
Frank's young face was grave and his candid eyes looked straight at his father.
”Look here,” he replied, ”I'm going to do the straight thing by Andrew.
I don't know that I've ever loved him as much as I ought, but that's all the more reason why I shouldn't chisel him now.”
”Oh, that's your military idea of discipline and all the rest of it; but let me tell you, falling in love is a different kind of thing from forming fours.”
For the first time the young soldier clearly disapproved of his father's rejuvenation.
”Duty is duty,” he persisted, ”and I tell you honestly I'm not going to sneak in behind my brother's back.”
”Is Ellen to have nothing to say in the matter? Do you propose to marry her to the man she doesn't love, instead of the man she does, without so much as giving her the choice?”
The soldier met this flank attack by a change of front.
”But Andrew has the means to marry her, and I've not.”
”I'll give you the means,” said his father.
Frank began to realize that Duty was in a very tight corner.
”But I haven't any grounds whatever for thinking that Ellen cares for me.”
”I have.”
”You'll have to convince _me_.”
”Is it not clearly your duty to settle that point first?”
Frank hesitated.
”Well--perhaps it is.”
The crafty strategist smiled.
”We'll settle it!”
”When?”
”At once. Where's a time-table?”
”But look here, my dear father, there's the question of honor to be settled after that.”
”After that--exactly; I'm with you all the way. But in the meanwhile, first get this into your head. An engagement is an affair of two hearts, not of two pockets or two heads. If the hearts are off, the bargain's off. That's the whole ethics of an engagement. And let me tell you I'm not without some experience.”