“I will.  When do you think I can see Pete?”

“I’d wait a day or two; but you might telephone him at once, if you like, and say—­or do you know what to say?”

She laughed.

“It used to frighten me when you made fun of me like that; but now—­It must be simply delirious to be able to make people as happy as you’ve just made us.”

He smiled at her word.

“Other people’s happiness is not exactly delirious,” he said.

She was moving in the direction of the nearest telephone, but she said over her shoulder: 

“Oh, well, I think you did pretty well for yourself when you chose Mama.”

She left him sipping his black coffee; he took every drop of that.

When he had finished he did not go back to his study, but to the drawing-room, where he sat down in a large chair by the fire.  He lit a cigar.  It was a quiet hour in the house, and he might have been supposed to be a man entirely at peace.

Mr. Lanley, coming in about an hour later, certainly imagined he was rousing an invalid from a refreshing rest.  He tried to retreat, but found Vincent’s black eyes were on him.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said.  “Just wanted to see Adelaide.”

“Adelaide has a headache.”

Life was taking so many wrong turnings that Mr. Lanley had grown apprehensive.  He suddenly remembered how many headaches Adelaide had had just before he knew of her troubles with Severance.

“A headache?” he said nervously.

“Nothing serious.”  Vincent looked more closely at his father-in-law.  “You yourself don’t look just the thing, sir.”

Mr. Lanley sat down more limply than was his custom.

“I’m getting to an age,” he said, “when I can’t stand scenes.  We had something of a scene here yesterday afternoon.  God bless my soul! though, I believe Adelaide told me not to mention it to you.”

“Adelaide is very considerate,” replied her husband.  His extreme susceptibility to sorrow made Mr. Lanley notice a tone which ordinarily would have escaped him, and he looked up so sharply that Farron was forced to add quickly:  “But you haven’t made a break.  I know about what took place.”

The egotism of suffering, the distorted vision of a sleepless night, made Mr. Lanley blurt out suddenly: 

“I want to ask you, Vincent, do you think I could have done anything different?”

Now, none of the accounts which Farron had received had made any mention of Mr. Lanley’s part in the proceedings at all, and so he paused a moment, and in that pause Mr. Lanley went on: 

“It’s a difficult position—­before a boy’s mother.  There isn’t anything against him, of course.  One’s reasons for not wanting the marriage do sound a little snobbish when one says them—­right out.  In fact, I suppose they are snobbish.  Do you find it hard to get away from early prejudices, Vincent?  I do.  I think Adelaide is quite right; and yet the boy is a nice boy.  What do you think of him?”