"
The case was less simple than it would once have been for General
Triscoe. There was still his affection for his daughter, his wish for her
happiness, but this had always been subordinate to his sense of his own
interest and comfort, and a question had recently arisen which put his
paternal love and duty in a new light. He was no more explicit with
himself than other men are, and the most which could ever be said of him
without injustice was that in his dependence upon her he would rather
have kept his daughter to himself if she could not have been very
prosperously married. On the other hand, if he disliked the man for whom
she now hardly hid her liking, he was not just then ready to go to
extremes concerning him.
"He was very anxious," she went on, "that you should know just how it
was. He thinks everything of your judgment and--and--opinion." The
general made a consenting noise in his throat. "He said that he did not
wish me to 'whitewash' him to you. He didn't think he had done right; he
didn't excuse himself, or ask you to excuse him unless you could from the
stand-point of a gentleman."
The general made a less consenting noise in his throat, and asked, "How
do you look at it, yourself, Agatha?"
"I don't believe I quite understand it; but Mrs.
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