Then he brought his gaze to bear upon her again.
"I suppose you've thought over what you're going to do, and feel it's for the best," said he, with a kind of stern embarrassment.

David Hautville felt no resentment because his daughter had not confided her engagement to him.

From his very lack of understanding of the feminine character, and his bewilderment over it, he was disposed to give his daughter a wide latitude in a matter of this kind.

Not comprehending the feminine gait to matrimony, but recognizing its inevitability, he was inclined to stand silently out of the road, unless his prejudices were too violently shocked.

He had also a mild respect for, and understanding of, reticence concerning one's own affairs, and was, moreover, furtively satisfied with the match.
"Yes, I have," answered Madelon, calmly.
"How soon were you calculating--" asked her father, pressing the tobacco harder into the pipe-bowl, and casting a meditative eye at the coals.
"He said a month--that was three weeks ago Monday.