Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/202

190 Old Grammont had got a phrase in his mind that looked like dominating the situation. He dreamt of saying to V.V.: “V.V., I’m going to make a man of you—if you’re man enough.” That was a large proposition; it implied—oh! it implied all sorts of things. It meant that she would care as little for philandering as an able young business man. Perhaps some day, a long time ahead, she might marry. There wasn’t much reason for it, but it might be she would not wish to be called a spinster. “Take a husband,” thought old Grammont, “when I am gone, as one takes a butler, to make the household complete.” In previous meditations on his daughter’s outlook old Grammont had found much that was very suggestive in the precedent of Queen Victoria. She had had no husband of the lord and master type, so to speak, but only a Prince Consort, well in hand. Why shouldn’t the Grammont heiress dominate her male belonging, if it came to that, in the same fashion? Why shouldn’t one tie her up and tie the whole thing up, so far as any male belonging was concerned, leaving V.V. in all other respects free? How could one do it?

The speculative calm of the sunken brown eyes deepened.

His thoughts went back to the white face of the private enquiry agent. “Absolutely nothing, Sir.” What had the fellow thought of hinting? Nothing of that kind in V.V.'s composition,—