"Oh, if you resort to epigrams, I can see that it's all over."
"All over. I'm so used to being alone that I shouldn't know what to do
with a wife." He puffed seriously.
Ah! the futility of our desires, of our castles, of our dreams! The
complacency with which we jog along in what we deem to be our own
particular groove! I recall a girl friend of my youth who was going to
be a celibate, a great reformer, and toward that end was studying for
the pulpit. She is now the mother of several children, the most
peaceful and unorative woman I know. You see, humanity goes whirring
over various side-tracks, thinking them to be the main line, till fate
puts its peculiar but happy hand to the switch. Scharfenstein had been
plugging away over rusty rails and grass-grown ties--till he came to
Barscheit.
"Hope is the wings of the heart," said I, when I thought the pause had
grown long enough. "You still hope?"
"In a way. If I recollect, you had an affair once,"--shrewdly.
I smoked on. I wasn't quite ready to speak.
"You were always on the hunt for ideals, too, as I remember; hope
you'll find her."
"Max, my boy, I am solemnly convinced that I have."
"Good Lord, you don't mean to tell me that you are _hooked_?" he cried.
"I see no reason why you should use that particular tone," I answered
stiffly.
"Oh, come now; tell me all about it. Who is she, and when's the
wedding?"
"I don't know when the wedding's going to be, but I'm mighty sure that
I have met the one girl. Max, there never was a girl like her. Witty
she is, and wise; as beautiful as a summer's dawn; merry and brave;
rides, drives, plays the 'cello, dances like a moon-shadow; and all
that,"--with a wave of the hand.
"You've got it bad. Remember how you used to write poetry at college?
Who is she, if I may ask?"
"The Honorable Betty Moore, at present the guest of her Highness, the
Princess Hildegarde,"--with pardonable pride.
Max whistled. "You're a lucky beggar. One by one we turn traitor to
our native land. A Britisher! I never should have believed it of you,
of the man whose class declamation was on the fiery subject of
patriotism. But is it all on one side?"
"I don't know, Max; sometimes I think so, and then I don't."
"How long have you known her?"
"Little more than a month."
"A month? Everything moves swiftly these days, except European railway
cars."
"There's a romance, Max, but another besides her is concerned, and I
can not tell you. Some day, when everything quiets down, I'll get you
into a corner with a bottle, and you will find it worth while."