"I'm engaged to her."
There was rather a long pause. Clayton's face was expressionless.
"Since when?"
"Last fall, sir."
"Does your mother know?"
"I told her, yes." He looked up quickly. "I didn't tell you. I knew you
disliked her, and mother said?" He checked himself. "Marion wanted to
wait. She wanted to be welcome when she came into the family."
"I don't so much dislike her as I--disapprove of her."
"That's rather worse, isn't it?"
Clayton was tired. His very spirit was tired. He sat down in his big
chair by the fire.
"She is older than you are, you know."
"I don't see what that has to do with it, father."
In Clayton's defense was his own situation. He did not want the boy to
repeat his mistakes, to marry the wrong woman, and then find, too
late, the right one. During the impassioned appeal that followed he was
doggedly determined to prevent that. Perhaps he lost the urgency in
the boy's voice. Perhaps in his new conviction that the passions of the
forties were the only real ones, he took too little count of the urge of
youth.
He roused himself.
"You think you are really in love with her?"
"I want her. I know that."
"That's different. That's--you are too young to know what you want."
"I ought to be married. It would settle me. I'm sick of batting round."
"You want to marry before you enter the army?"
"Yes."
"Do you think for a moment that your wife will be willing to let you
go?"
Graham straightened himself.
"She would have to let me go."
And in sheer despair, Clayton played his last card. Played it, and
regretted it bitterly a moment later.
"We must get this straight, Graham. It's not a question of your entering
the army or not doing it. It's a question of your happiness. Marriage is
a matter of a life-time. It's got to be based on something more than--"
he hesitated. "And your mother?"
"Please go on."
"You have just said that your mother does not want you to go into the
army. Has it occurred to you she would even see you married to a girl
she detests, to keep you at home?"
Graham's face hardened.
"So;" he said, heavily, "Marion wants me for the money she thinks I'm
going to have, and mother wants me to marry to keep me safe! By God,
it's a dirty world, isn't it?"