"But there's no sort of obligation. Colonel Lapham would
be the last man in the world to want to give our relation
any sort of social character. The meeting will come about
in the natural course of things."
"Ah, I didn't intend to propose anything immediate,"
said the father. "One can't do anything in the summer,
and I should prefer your mother's superintendence.
Still, I can't rid myself of the idea of a dinner.
It appears to me that there ought to be a dinner."
"Oh, pray don't feel that there's any necessity."
"Well," said the elder, with easy resignation, "there's at
least no hurry."
"There is one thing I don't like," said Lapham,
in the course of one of those talks which came up
between his wife and himself concerning Corey, "or at
least I don't understand it; and that's the way his
father behaves. I don't want to force myself on any man;
but it seems to me pretty queer the way he holds off.
I should think he would take enough interest in his
son to want to know something about his business.
What is he afraid of?" demanded Lapham angrily. "Does he
think I'm going to jump at a chance to get in with him,
if he gives me one? He's mightily mistaken if he does.
I don't want to know him."
"Silas," said his wife, making a wife's free version
of her husband's words, and replying to their spirit
rather than their letter, "I hope you never said a word
to Mr.
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