“d**k, old boy,” I said, at last, “I wonder if I can treat you as I would a grown man—as I would treat some grown men, I should say.”
“I dare say you could, brother-in-law,” he answered. “Why don’t you try?”
“Supposing that you were not to become my brother-in-law, as you seem so fond of calling me, would you be sorry?”
“I jolly well think I should!” he replied, looking up sharply. “But what makes you say a thing like that? It’s all rot, isn’t it?”
He seemed, as he looked at me with his big brown eyes which were so like Dulcie’s, to be trying to discover if I spoke in jest or partly in earnest.
“You are going to marry Dulcie, aren’t you? You’re not going to break it off? You haven’t had a row or anything of that kind”
“No, not exactly a row,” I said, staring into his nice frank face.
