Mr. Bennett stared in a frozen sort of way at the hand. He had placed Sam by now. He knew that Sir Mallaby had a son. This, presumably, was he. But the discovery did not diminish his indignation.
"I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Bennett," said Sam. "You could not have come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things are. There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter, Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!"
And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that.
"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. "I haven't got a son."
"I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining years...."
"What the devil do you mean, my declining years?" demanded Mr. Bennett with asperity.
"He means when they do decline, father dear," said Billie.
"Of course, of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then, of course! I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr. Bennett. Bennett of New York!" he added spaciously, not so much because he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that he did not, but because it sounded well.
"Oh!" said Mr. Bennett "You do, do you?"
Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative. It was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to have directed at anybody except possibly an exceptionally prudish judge at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually atrocious murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving.
"Oh, father! You aren't angry."
"Angry!"
"You can't be angry!"
"Why can't I be angry!" demanded Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. "Why the devil shouldn't I be angry? I am angry! I come here and find you like--like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air and give three rousing cheers! Of course I'm angry! You are engaged to be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of the finest young men I have ever met...."