“I’m rather surprised at that.”

“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 buttered 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?”