“Very well.  Bring Ann—­Oh, Peter, that reminds me of what I wanted to say to you, which this dreadful thing in the paper drove completely out of my mind.  Lord Wisbeach has asked Ann to marry him!”

Mr. Pett looked a little hurt.  “She didn’t tell me.”  Ann usually confided in him.

“She didn’t tell me, either.  Lord Wisbeach told me.  He said Ann had promised to think it over, and give him his answer later.  Meanwhile, he had come to me to assure himself that I approved.  I thought that so charming of him.”

Mr. Pett was frowning.

“She hasn’t accepted him?”

“Not definitely.”

“I hope she doesn’t.”

“Don’t be foolish, Peter.  It would be an excellent match.”

Mr. Pett shuffled his feet.

“I don’t like him.  There’s something too darned smooth about that fellow.”

“If you mean that his manners are perfect, I agree with you.  I shall do all in my power to induce Ann to accept him.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Mr. Pett, with more decision than was his wont.  “You know what Ann is if you try to force her to do anything.  She gets her ears back and won’t budge.  Her father is just the same.  When we were boys together, sometimes—­”

“Don’t be absurd, Peter.  As if I should dream of trying to force Ann to do anything.”

“We don’t know anything of this fellow.  Two weeks ago we didn’t know he was on the earth.”

“What do we need to know beyond his name?”

Mr. Pett said nothing, but he was not convinced.  The Lord Wisbeach under discussion was a pleasant-spoken and presentable young man who had called at Mr. Pett’s office a short while before to consult him about investing some money.  He had brought a letter of introduction from Hammond Chester, Ann’s father, whom he had met in Canada, where the latter was at present engaged in the comparatively mild occupation of bass-fishing.  With their business talk the acquaintance would have begun and finished, if Mr. Pett had been able to please himself, for he had not taken a fancy to Lord Wisbeach.  But he was an American, with an American’s sense of hospitality, and, the young man being a friend of Hammond Chester, he had felt bound to invite him to Riverside Drive—­with misgivings which were now, he felt, completely justified.

“Ann ought to marry,” said Mrs. Pett.  “She gets her own way too much now.  However, it is entirely her own affair, and there is nothing that we can do.”  She rose.  “I only hope she will be sensible.”

She went out, leaving Mr. Pett gloomier than she had found him.  He hated the idea of Ann marrying Lord Wisbeach, who, even if he had had no faults at all, would be objectionable in that he would probably take her to live three thousand miles away in his own country.  The thought of losing Ann oppressed Mr. Pett sorely.