That
affair was all right, quite all right. Of course it was all right. And
also, happily, Caston was among the dead. But it was well her broken
engagement with Lake had been resumed as though it had never been broken
off. If there had been any talk that fact answered it. And now that Lake
had served his purpose old Grammont did not care in the least if he was
shelved. V.V. could stand alone.
Old Grammont had got a phrase in his mind that looked like dominating
the situation. He dreamt of saying to V.V.: "V.V., I'm going to make
a man of you--if you're man enough." That was a large proposition; it
implied--oh! it implied all sorts of things. It meant that she would
care as little for philandering as an able young business man. Perhaps
some day, a long time ahead, she might marry. There wasn't much reason
for it, but it might be she would not wish to be called a spinster.
"Take a husband," thought old Grammont, "when I am gone, as one takes a
butler, to make the household complete." In previous meditations on his
daughter's outlook old Grammont had found much that was very suggestive
in the precedent of Queen Victoria. She had had no husband of the lord
and master type, so to speak, but only a Prince Consort, well in hand.
Why shouldn't the Grammont heiress dominate her male belonging, if it
came to that, in the same fashion? Why shouldn't one tie her up and tie
the whole thing up, so far as any male belonging was concerned, leaving
V.
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