“Never mind that. This favored child of Fortune, Arthur Brent, M. D., Ph. D., etc., bitterly complains of Fate for having poured such plenty into his lap, rescuing him from a life of toil and trouble and tuberculosis--for I’m perfectly satisfied you would have contracted that malady, whatever it is, if Fate hadn’t saved you from it by compelling you to come down here to Virginia. “Don’t criticise if I get my tenses mixed up a little, so long as my moods are right. Very well, to drop what my governess used to call ‘the historical present,’ this absurd and preposterous young man straightway ‘kicked against the pricks’--that’s not slang but a Biblical quotation, as you would very well know if you read your Bible half as diligently as you study your books on therapeutics. Better than that, it is truth that I’m telling you. You actually wanted to get rid of your heritage, to throw away just about the finest chance a young man ever had to make himself happy and comfortable and contented. You might even have indulged yourself in the pastime of making love to me, and getting your suit so sweetly rejected that you would ever afterwards have thought of the episode as an important part of your education. But you threw away even that opportunity. “Now comes to you the greatest good fortune of all, and it positively frightens you so badly that you are planning to run away from it--if you can. “Badinage aside, Arthur,--or should that word be ‘bandinage?’ You see I don’t know, and my dictionary is in another room, and anyhow the phrase sounds literary. Now to go on. Really, Arthur, you are a ridiculous person. You have had months of daily, hourly, intimate association with Dorothy. With your habits of observation, and still more your splendid gifts in that way, you cannot have failed to discover her superiority to young women generally. If you have failed, if you have been so blind as not to see, let me point out the fact to you. Did you ever know a better mind than hers? Was there ever a whiter soul? Has she not such a capacity of devotion and loyalty and love as you never saw in any other woman? Isn’t her courage admirable? Is not her truthfulness something that a man may trust his honor and his life to, knowing absolutely that his faith must always be secure? “Fie upon you, Arthur. Why do you not see how lavishly Providence has dealt with you?