He was probably in love, my acquaintance of two days.  He saw in me a plain person, who could not possibly be a rival, having some knowledge of the world, and he was in need of a confidant, like a school-girl.  I reflected that he was probably a victim for the first time.  There is very little romance in India, and he had, of course, married for convenience and respectability rather than for any real affection.  His first passion!  This man who had been tossed about like a bit of driftwood, who had by his own determination and intelligence carved his way to wealth and power in the teeth of every difficulty.  Just now, in his embarrassment, he looked very boyish.  His troubles had left no wrinkles on his smooth forehead, his bright black hair was untinged by a single thread of gray, and as he looked up, after the pause that followed when he mentioned the name of the woman he loved, there was a very really youthful look of mingled passion and distress in his beautiful eyes.

“I think, Mr. Isaacs, that you have used a stronger argument against the opinions you profess to hold than I could have found in my whole armoury of logic.”

As he looked at me, the whole field of possibilities seemed opened.  I must have been mistaken in thinking this marriage impossible and incongruous.  What incongruity could there be in Isaacs marrying Miss Westonhaugh?  My conclusions were false.  Why must he necessarily return with her to England, and wear a red coat, and make himself ridiculous at the borough elections?  Why should not this ideal couple choose some happy spot, as far from the corrosive influence of Anglo-Saxon prejudice as from the wretched sensualism of prosperous life east of the Mediterranean?  I was carried away by the idea, returning with redoubled strength as a sequel to what I had argued and to what I had guessed.  “Why not?” was the question I repeated to myself over and over again in the half minute’s pause after Isaacs finished speaking.

“You are right,” he said slowly, his half-closed eyes fixed on his feet.  “Yes, you are right.  Why not?  Indeed, indeed, why not?”

It must have been pure guess-work, this reading of my thoughts.  When he was last speaking his manner was all indifference, scorn of my ideas, and defiance of every western mode of reasoning.  And now, apparently by pure intuition, he gave a direct answer to the direct question I had mentally asked, and, what is more, his answer came with a quiet, far-away tone of conviction that had not a shade of unbelief in it.  It was delivered as monotonously and naturally as a Christian says “Credo in unum Deum,” as if it were not worth disputing; or as the devout Mussulman says “La Illah illallah,” not stooping to consider the existence of any one bold enough to deny the dogma.  No argument, not hours of patient reasoning, or weeks of well directed persuasion, could have wrought the change in the man’s tone that came over it at the mere mention of the woman he loved.  I had no share in his conversion.  My arguments had been the excuse by which he had converted himself.  Was he converted? was it real?