He asked her to be so
good as to arrange that Mr. Dosson should be there to receive him and to
keep Francie out of the way. Delia acquitted herself to the letter.

"Well, sir, what have you got to show?" asked Francie's father, leaning
far back on the sofa and moving nothing but his head, and that very
little, toward his interlocutor. Gaston was placed sidewise, a hand on
each knee, almost facing him, on the edge of the seat.

"To show, sir--what do you mean?"

"What do you do for a living? How do you subsist?"

"Oh comfortably enough. Of course it would be remiss in you not to
satisfy yourself on that point. My income's derived from three sources.
First some property left me by my dear mother. Second a legacy from my
poor brother--he had inherited a small fortune from an old relation of
ours who took a great fancy to him (he went to America to see her) which
he divided among the four of us in the will he made at the time of the
War."'

"The war--what war?" asked Mr. Dosson.

"Why the Franco-German--"

"Oh THAT old war!" And Mr. Dosson almost laughed. "Well?" he mildly
continued.

"Then my father's so good as to make me a decent allowance; and some day
I shall have more--from him."

Mr. Dosson appeared to think these things over. "Why, you seem to have
fixed it so you live mostly on other folks."

"I shall never attempt to live on you, sir!" This was spoken with some
vivacity by our young man; he felt the next moment that he had said
something that might provoke a retort. But his companion showed no
sharpness.

"Well, I guess there won't be any trouble about that. And what does my
daughter say?"

"I haven't spoken to her yet."

"Haven't spoken to the person most interested?"

"I thought it more orthodox to break ground with you first."

"Well, when I was after Mrs. Dosson I guess I spoke to her quick
enough," Francie's father just a little dryly stated. There was an
element of reproach in this and Gaston was mystified, for the question
about his means a moment before had been in the nature of a challenge.

"How will you feel if she won't have you after you've exposed yourself
this way to me?" Mr. Dosson went on.

"Well, I've a sort of confidence. It may be vain, but God grant not! I
think she likes me personally, but what I'm afraid of is that she
may consider she knows too little about me. She has never seen my
people--she doesn't know what may be before her."

"Do you mean your family--the fol