"She _is_ a good, honest girl, no doubt of that. But suppose the question of marriage had never risen between us, and she still liked to meet me and to walk with me, what then? In the gravel paths of Kensington Gardens, Pamela herself might have strolled with Captain Lovelace himself without fear. Why should not I with--with this young lady?" "Because, though you don't know it, you're deceiving yourself and deceiving her; because the whole thing is incongruous and won't fit, however you may try to make it do so; because it's wrong, however much you may slur it over. Look here, Paul; suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you wanted to marry this girl--you're as weak as water, and there's no accounting for what you might wish--you know your people would oppose it in the very strongest way, and----" "Oh, if I chose it, my 'people,' as you call them, must have it, or leave it alone, which would be quite immaterial to me." "Yes, yes, no doubt; but still----" "Look here, George; let's bring this question to a practical issue. I'm ten times more a man of the world than you, though you are an old fogey, and clever and sensible and all that. What you are aiming it is that I must give up this girl. Well, then, shortly, I won't!" "And why won't you?" "For a reason you can't understand, you old mole, burrowed down here under your paintings, and your fugues, and your dreary old German philosophers--because I love her; because I think of her from morning till night, and from night till morning again; because her bright face and her gay creamy skin come between me and those beastly old minutes and memoranda that we have to write at the shop; and when I'm lying awake in Hanover Street, or even sitting surrounded by a lot of gabbling idiots in the smoking-room of the club, I can see her gray eyes looking at me, and----" "Oh Lord!" said George Wainwright, with a piteous smile; "I had no idea I'd let myself in for this!" "You have, my dear old George, and for a lot more at a future time. Just now I came out to you because I was horribly restless, and Billy fastened himself on to me at the club, and I could not shake him off. But I want to talk to you about it seriously, George--seriously, you understand!" "Whenever you like, Paul; but I expect you'll only get one scrap of advice out of me, repeated, as I fear, _ad nauseam_." "And that is?" "Give her up! give her up! give her up! Cato's powers of iteration in the _delenda est Carthago_ business will prove weak as compared to mine in this." "You'll find me stubborn, George." "Buffon gives stubbornness as a characteristic of your class, Paul. Goodnight, old man." "Goodnight, God bless you! To-morrow as per usual, I suppose?" and he was gone.