Gilbert Gildersleeve's daughter! That rascally Q.C.'s!
At any other moment such a proposal would have driven him forthwith
into open hostilities. If Granville chose to marry a girl like that,
why, Granville might have lived on what his father would allow him.
Just now, however, with this keen fit of remorse quite fresh upon
his soul about poor Lucy's sons, Colonel Kelmscott was almost
disposed to accept the opening thus laid before him by Granville's
proposal.
So he temporized for awhile, nursing his chin with his hand,
and then, after much discussion, yielded at last a conditional
consent--conditional upon their mutual agreement as to the terms
on which the entail was to be finally broken.
"And what sort of arrangement do you propose I should make for your
personal maintenance, and this Gildersleeve girl's household?" the
Colonel asked at length, with a very red face, descending to details.
His son, without appearing to notice the implied slight to Gwendoline,
named the terms that he thought would satisfy him.
"That's a very stiff sum," the master of Tilgate retorted; "but
perhaps I could manage it; per--haps I could manage it. We must
sell the Dowlands farm at once, that's certain, and I must take the
twelve thousand or so the land will fetch for my own use, absolutely
and without restriction.
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