They reached Wimbledon, and Ramage whipped out to hand Miss Stanley to the platform as though she had been a duchess, and she descended as though such attentions from middle-aged, but still gallant, merchants were a matter of course.  Then, as Ramage readjusted himself in a corner, he remarked:  “These young people shoot up, Stanley.  It seems only yesterday that she was running down the Avenue, all hair and legs.”

Mr. Stanley regarded him through his glasses with something approaching animosity.

“Now she’s all hat and ideas,” he said, with an air of humor.

“She seems an unusually clever girl,” said Ramage.

Mr. Stanley regarded his neighbor’s clean-shaven face almost warily.  “I’m not sure whether we don’t rather overdo all this higher education,” he said, with an effect of conveying profound meanings.

Part 6

He became quite sure, by a sort of accumulation of reflection, as the day wore on.  He found his youngest daughter intrusive in his thoughts all through the morning, and still more so in the afternoon.  He saw her young and graceful back as she descended from the carriage, severely ignoring him, and recalled a glimpse he had of her face, bright and serene, as his train ran out of Wimbledon.  He recalled with exasperating perplexity her clear, matter-of-fact tone as she talked about love-making being unconvincing.  He was really very proud of her, and extraordinarily angry and resentful at the innocent and audacious self-reliance that seemed to intimate her sense of absolute independence of him, her absolute security without him.  After all, she only looked a woman.  She was rash and ignorant, absolutely inexperienced.  Absolutely.  He began to think of speeches, very firm, explicit speeches, he would make.

He lunched in the Legal Club in Chancery Lane, and met Ogilvy.  Daughters were in the air that day.  Ogilvy was full of a client’s trouble in that matter, a grave and even tragic trouble.  He told some of the particulars.

“Curious case,” said Ogilvy, buttering his bread and cutting it up in a way he had.  “Curious case—­and sets one thinking.”

He resumed, after a mouthful:  “Here is a girl of sixteen or seventeen, seventeen and a half to be exact, running about, as one might say, in London.  Schoolgirl.  Her family are solid West End people, Kensington people.  Father—­dead.  She goes out and comes home.  Afterward goes on to Oxford.  Twenty-one, twenty-two.  Why doesn’t she marry?  Plenty of money under her father’s will.  Charming girl.”

He consumed Irish stew for some moments.

“Married already,” he said, with his mouth full.  “Shopman.”

“Good God!” said Mr. Stanley.

“Good-looking rascal she met at Worthing.  Very romantic and all that.  He fixed it.”

“But—­”

“He left her alone.  Pure romantic nonsense on her part.  Sheer calculation on his.  Went up to Somerset House to examine the will before he did it.  Yes.  Nice position.”