“Not in the least. I have never thought
you a man of oddities.” Gordon stood there
looking at him with a serious eye, half appealing,
half questioning; but at these last words he glanced
away. Even a very modest man may wince a little
at hearing himself denied the distinction of a few
variations from the common type. Longueville made
this reflection, and it struck him, also, that his
companion was in a graver mood than he had expected;
though why, after all, should he have been in a state
of exhilaration? “Your letter was a very
natural, interesting one,” Bernard added.
“Well, you see,” said Gordon, facing his
companion again, “I have been a good deal preoccupied.”
“Obviously, my dear fellow!”
“I want very much to marry.”
“It ’s a capital idea,” said Longueville.
“I think almost as well of it,” his friend
declared, “as if I had invented it. It
has struck me for the first time.”
These words were uttered with a mild simplicity which
provoked Longueville to violent laughter.
“My dear fellow,” he exclaimed, “you
have, after all, your little oddities.”
Singularly enough, however, Gordon Wright failed to
appear flattered by this concession.
“I did n’t send for you to laugh at me,”
he said.
“Ah, but I have n’t travelled three hundred
miles to cry! Seriously, solemnly, then, it is
one of these young ladies that has put marriage into
your head?”
“Not at all. I had it in my head.”
“Having a desire to marry, you proceeded to
fall in love.”
“I am not in love!” said Gordon Wright,
with some energy.
“Ah, then, my dear fellow, why did you send
for me?”
Wright looked at him an instant in silence.
“Because I thought you were a good fellow, as
well as a clever one.”
“A good fellow!” repeated Longueville.
“I don’t understand your confounded scientific
nomenclature. But excuse me; I won’t laugh.
I am not a clever fellow; but I am a good one.”
He paused a moment, and then laid his hand on his
companion’s shoulder. “My dear Gordon,
it ’s no use; you are in love.”
“Well, I don’t want to be,” said
Wright.
“Heavens, what a horrible sentiment!”
“I want to marry with my eyes open. I want
to know my wife. You don’t know people
when you are in love with them. Your impressions
are colored.”
“They are supposed to be, slightly. And
you object to color?”
“Well, as I say, I want to know the woman I
marry, as I should know any one else. I want
to see her as clearly.”
“Depend upon it, you have too great an appetite
for knowledge; you set too high an esteem upon the
dry light of science.”
“Ah!” said Gordon promptly; “of
course I want to be fond of her.”
Bernard, in spite of his protest, began to laugh again.
“My dear Gordon, you are better than your theories.
Your passionate heart contradicts your frigid intellect.
I repeat it—you are in love.”
