The Inner Shrine Part 11

"Yes; you should be," she conceded; "but I couldn't make you understand it, any more than you could make me understand banking."

"I'm not convinced of the impossibility of either," he objected, knocking the top off an egg. "Suppose you were to try."

Dorothea shook her head.

"It wouldn't be of any use. The fact is, I really don't understand it myself. What's more, I don't suppose anybody else does. Carli Wappinger belongs to the right people because the right people say he does; and there is no more to be said about it."

"I should think that Mrs. Wappinger might be a--drawback."

"Not if the right people don't think so; and they don't. They've taken her up, and they ask her everywhere; but they couldn't tell you why they do it, any more than birds could tell you why they migrate. As a matter of fact, they don't care. They just do it, and let it be."

"That sort of election and predestination may be very convenient for Mrs. Wappinger, but I should think you might have reasons for not caring to indorse it."

"I haven't. Why should I, more than anybody else."

"You've so much social perspicacity that I hoped you would see without my having to tell you. It's chiefly a question of antecedents."

Dorothea looked thoughtful, her head tipped to one side, as she b.u.t.tered a bit of toast.

"I know that's an important point," she admitted, "but it isn't everything. You've got to look at things all round, and not mistake your shadow for your bone."

"I'm glad you see there is a shadow."

"I see there is only a shadow."

"A shadow on--what?"

Pruyn meant this for a leading question, and as such Dorothea took it.

She gazed at him for a minute with the clear eyes and straightforward expression that were so essential a part of her dainty, self-reliant personality. If she was bracing herself for an effort, there was no external sign of it.

"I may as well tell you, father," she said, "that Carli Wappinger has asked me to marry him."

For a long minute Derek sat with body seemingly stunned, but with mind busily searching for the wisest way in which to take this astounding bit of information. At the end of many seconds of silence he exploded in loud laughter, choosing this method of treating Dorothea's confidence in order to impress her with the ludicrous aspect of the affair, as it must appear to the grown-up mind.

"Funny, isn't it?" she remarked, dryly, when he thought it advisable to grow calmer.

"It's not only funny; it's the drollest thing I ever heard in my life."

"I thought it might strike you that way. That's why I told you."

"And what did you tell him, if I may ask?"

"I told him it was out of the question--for the present."

"For the present! That's good. But why the reservation?"

"I couldn't tell him it would be out of the question always, because I didn't know. As long as he didn't ask me for a definite answer, I didn't feel obliged to give him one."

"I think you might have committed yourself as far as that."

"I prefer not to commit myself at all. I'm very young and inexperienced--"

"I'm glad you see that."

"Though neither so inexperienced nor so young as mamma was when she married you. And you were only twenty-one yourself, father, while Carli is nearly twenty-three."

"I wouldn't compare the two instances if I were you."

"I don't. I merely state the facts. I want to make it plain that, though we're both very young, we're not so young as to make the case exceptional."

"But I understood you to say that there was no--case."

"There is to this extent: that while I'm free, Carli considers himself bound. That's the way we've left it."

"That is to say, he's engaged, but you aren't."

"That's what Carli thinks."

"Then I refuse to consent to it."

"But, father dear," Dorothea asked, arching her pretty eyebrows, "do you have to consent to what Carli thinks about himself? Can't he do that just as he likes?"

"He can't become a hanger-on of my family without my permission."

"He says he's not going to hang on, but to stand off. He's going to allow me full liberty of action and fair play."

"That's very kind of him."

"Only, when I choose to come back to him I shall find him waiting."

"I might suggest that you never go back to him at all, only that there's a better way of meeting the situation. That is to put a stop to the nonsense now; and I shall take steps to do it."

Dorothea preserved her self-control, but two tiny hectic spots began to burn in her cheeks, while she kept her eyes persistently lowered, as though to veil the spirit of determination glowing there.

"Hadn't you better leave that to me?" she asked, after a brief pause.

"I will, if you promise to put it through."

"You see," she answered, in a reasoning tone, "my whole object is not to promise anything--yet. I should think the advantage of that would strike you, if only from the point of view of business. It's like having the refusal of a picture or a piece of property. You may never want them; but it does no harm to know that n.o.body else can get them till you decide."

"Neither does it do any harm to let somebody else have a chance, when you know that you can't take them."

"Of course not; but I couldn't say that now. I quite realize that I'm too young to know my own mind; and it's only reasonable to consider things all round. Carli is rich and good-looking. He has a cultivated mind and a kind heart. There are lots of men, to whom you'd have no objection whatever, who wouldn't possess all those qualifications, or perhaps any of them."

"Nevertheless, I should imagine that the fact that I have objections would have its weight with you."

"Naturally; and yet you would neither force me into what I didn't like to do, nor refuse me what I wanted."

With this definition of his parental att.i.tude Dorothea pushed back her chair and moved sedately from the room.