Harcourt and the stranger, it was certain that THEY arranged the
practical details of the engagement, and that the youthful husband sat
silent, merely offering his always hopeful and sanguine consent.
"You'll take a house nearer to town, I suppose?" continued Mr. Fletcher
to the lady, "though you've a charming view here. I suppose it was quite
a change from Tasajara and your father-in-law's house? I daresay he had
as fine a place there--on his own homestead--as he has here?"
Young Harcourt dropped his sensitive eyelids again. It seemed hard that
he could never get away from these allusions to his father! Perhaps it
was only to that relationship that he was indebted for his visitor's
kindness. In his simple honesty he could not bear the thought of such
a misapprehension. "Perhaps, Mr. Fletcher, you do not know," he said,
"that my father is not on terms with me, and that we neither expect
anything nor could we ever take anything from him. Could we, Loo?" He
added the useless question partly because he saw that his wife's face
betrayed little sympathy with him, and partly that Fletcher was looking
at her curiously, as if for confirmation. But this was another of John
Milton's trials as an imaginative reporter; nobody ever seemed to care
for his practical opinions or facts!
"Mr. Fletcher is not interested in our little family differences,
Milty," she said, looking at Mr.
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