“Do you see that fellow in the gray suit–I think he has been sleeping in it–at the table on your right? Look at the stodgy face. See the glassy eye. If that man sandbagged your Freddie and tied him up somewhere, and turned up at the church instead of him, can you honestly tell me you would know the difference? Come, now, wouldn’t you simply say, ‘Why, Freddie, how natural you look!’ and go through the ceremony without a suspicion?”
“He isn’t a bit like Freddie.”
“My dear girl, there isn’t a man in this restaurant under the age of thirty who isn’t just like Freddie. All Englishmen look exactly alike, talk exactly alike, and think exactly alike.”
“And you oughtn’t to speak of him as Freddie. You don’t know him.”
“Yes, I do. And, what is more, he expressly asked me to call him Freddie. ‘Oh, dash it, old top, don’t keep on calling me Threepwood! Freddie to pals!’ Those were his very words.”
“George, you’re making this up.”
“Not at all. We met last night at the National Sporting Club. Porky Jones was going twenty rounds with Eddie Flynn. I offered to give three to one on Eddie. Freddie, who was sitting next to me, took me in fivers. And if you want any further proof of your young man’s pin-headedness; mark that! A child could have seen that Eddie had him going. Eddie comes from Pittsburgh–God bless it! My own home town!”
“Did your Eddie win?”
“You don’t listen–I told you he was from Pittsburgh. And afterward Threepwood chummed up with me and told me that to real pals like me he was Freddie. I was a real pal, as I understood it, because I would have to wait for my money. The fact was, he explained, his old governor had cut off his bally allowance.”
“You’re simply trying to poison my mind against him; and I don’t think it’s very nice of you, George.”
“What do you mean–poison your mind? I’m not poisoning your mind; I’m simply telling you a few things about him. You know perfectly well that you don’t love him, and that you aren’t going to marry him–and that you are going to marry me.”
“How do you know I don’t love my Freddie?”
“If you can look me straight in the eyes and tell me you do, I will drop the whole thing and put on a little page’s dress and carry your train up the aisle. Now, then!”
“And all the while you’re talking you’re letting my carver get away,” said Aline.
George called to the willing priest, who steered his truck toward them. Aline directed his dissection of the shoulder of mutton by word and gesture.
“Enjoy yourself!” said Emerson coldly.
“So I do, George; so I do. What excellent meat they have in England!”
“It all comes from America,” said George patriotically. “And, anyway, can’t you be a bit more spiritual? I don’t want to sit here discussing food products.”
“If you were in my position, George, you wouldn’t want to talk about anything else. It’s doing him a world of good, poor dear; but there are times when I’m sorry Father ever started this food-reform thing. You don’t know what it means for a healthy young girl to try and support life on nuts and grasses.”
“And why should you?” broke out Emerson. “I’ll tell you what it is, Aline–you are perfectly absurd about your father. I don’t want to say anything against him to you, naturally; but–”
“Go ahead, George. Why this diffidence? Say what you like.”
“Very well, then, I will. I’ll give it to you straight. You know quite well that you have let your father bully you since you were in short frocks. I don’t say it is your fault or his fault, or anybody’s fault; I just state it as a fact. It’s temperament, I suppose. You are yielding and he is aggressive; and he has taken advantage of it.
“We now come to this idiotic Freddie-marriage business. Your father has forced you into that. It’s all very well to say that you are a free agent and that fathers don’t coerce their daughters nowadays. The trouble is that your father does. You let him do what he likes with you. He has got you hypnotized; and you won’t break away from this Freddie foolishness because you can’t find the nerve. I’m going to help you find the nerve. I’m coming down to Blandings Castle when you go there on Friday.”