“Her immense prospects, that’s what Susan has been putting forward. Susan’s insistence on them was mainly what brought over Jane. Do you mind my speaking of them?” Gaston was obliged to recognise privately the importance of Jane’s having been brought over, but he hated to hear it spoken of as if he were under an obligation to it. “To whom, sir?” he asked. “Oh only to you.” “You can’t do less than Mr. Dosson. As I told you, he waived the question of money and he was splendid. We can’t be more mercenary than he.” “He waived the question of his own, you mean?” said Mr. Probert. “Yes, and of yours. But it will be all right.” The young man flattered himself that this was as near as he was willing to go to any view of pecuniary convenience. “Well, it’s your affair--or your sisters’,” his father returned. “It’s their idea that we see where we are and that we make the best of it.” “It’s very good of them to make the best of it and I should think they’d be tired of their own chatter,” Gaston impatiently sighed. Mr. Probert looked at him a moment in vague surprise, but only said: “I think they are. However, the period of discussion’s closed. We’ve taken the jump.” He then added as to put the matter a little less dryly: “Alphonse and Maxime are quite of your opinion.” “Of my opinion?” “That she’s charming.” “Confound them then, I’m not of theirs!” The form of this rejoinder was childishly perverse, and it made Mr. Probert stare again; but it belonged to one of the reasons for which his children regarded him as an old darling that Gaston could suppose him after an instant to embrace it. The old man said nothing, but took up his book, and his son, who had been standing before the fire, went out of the room. His abstention from protest at Gaston’s petulance was the more generous as he was capable, for his part, of feeling it to make for a greater amenity in the whole connexion that ces messieurs should like the little girl at the hotel. Gaston didn’t care a straw what it made for, and would have seen himself in bondage indeed had he given a second thought to the question. This was especially the case as his father’s mention of the approval of two of his brothers-in-law appeared to point to a possible disapproval on the part of the third. Francie’s lover cared as little whether she displeased M. de Brecourt as he cared whether she pleased Maxime and Raoul. Mr. Probert continued to read, and in a few moments Gaston was with him again. He had expressed surprise, just before, at the wealth of discussion his sisters had been ready to expend in his interest, but he managed to convey now that there was still a point of a certain importance to be made. “It seems rather odd to me that you should all appear to accept the step I’M about to take as a necessity disagreeable at the best, when I myself hold that I’ve been so exceedingly fortunate.”