"My poor little girl is going to have peace and happiness at last," he said, with a deep thrill in his voice. "We shall value it all the more because we have waited for it so long, so that the three years of our probation will not be altogether wasted. I expect there will be a good deal of talk about Carl Sartoris for a few days to come, but that need not concern Mary, who has never been identified with that scoundrel, and whose name is Grey, after all. In the course of a few days I am going to take Mary away and we shall be married very quietly. I am determined to try to get the roses back to her cheeks again."
"I hope you will be happy, as you deserve to be," Beatrice said with some emotion. "But I shall be sorry to lose two such good, kind friends, and----"
"You are not going to lose us," Berrington said. "I am going to give up soldiering altogether. I have only carried it on for the last few years, because I needed something to keep me from brooding over my troubles. I am going to settle down on my property at last. Good-night."
Beatrice shook Berrington warmly by the hand, and he kissed her little fingers. He had barely departed before Mark was back with a little wiry man with a keen face and a pair of grey eyes that seemed to see into everything.
"So this is Beatrice," he said, as he shook hands. "You must let me call you that, my dear, because you are going to be my daughter, Mark tells me. I am a plain man who has more or less lived for business all his life, but begins to see lately that business is not everything. It does not make for happiness, for instance. When I was ill I began to see that. But at any rate the result of my business can make others happy."
Beatrice blushed and smiled. She began to see that she was going to like Mark's father very much indeed. In quite a natural way she kissed him. The little grey man beamed with pleasure.
"Now that was real nice of you," he said. "Mark has a great deal more sense and discretion than I gave him credit for. He is making a name for himself, too. But you can't live on that kind of thing, at least not at first, and I'm going to give Mark £5000 a year, on condition that he takes a pretty little place in the country, where I can come and see you week ends. My dear, I feel that we are going to be very good friends indeed."