“Come, Father, if you haven’t done a good deal of contriving and conniving in your time, you may talk.”
“But it was different, I assure you.”
“It’s always different.”
Hilda arrived, also furious, when she heard of the new developments. And she also simply could not stand the thought of a public scandal about her sister and a gamekeeper. Too, too humiliating!
“Why should we not just disappear, separately, to British Columbia, and have no scandal?” said Connie.
But that was no good. The scandal would come out just the same. And if Connie was going with the man, she’d better be able to marry him. This was Hilda’s opinion. Sir Malcolm wasn’t sure. The affair might still blow over.
“But will you see him, Father?”
Poor Sir Malcolm! he was by no means keen on it. And poor Mellors, he was still less keen. Yet the meeting took place: a lunch in a private room at the club, the two men alone, looking one another up and down.
Sir Malcolm drank a fair amount of whiskey, Mellors also drank. And they talked all the while about India, on which the young man was well informed.
This lasted during the meal. Only when coffee was served, and the waiter had gone, Sir Malcolm lit a cigar and said, heartily:
“Well, young man, and what about my daughter?”
The grin flickered on Mellors’s face.
“Well, Sir, and what about her?”