He paused, and glanced triumphantly at the old man. He felt in some secret, instinctive way that he was gaining ground. A squadron of fauns had charged from amid the vine-leaves, and the legion upon the highway was in rout. Fine sense was victorious for the moment over common sense.
“I think,” said Maskelyne, at last, and with a strange, sad, patient air, unwearied, however, by the young man’s dithyrambic, sometimes almost incoherent speech, “I think I cannot attempt to advise you. Having discarded the wisdom of ages, what heed will you give the wisdom of age?”
A cloud seemed to cast its shadow over the other’s face. Could it be that, lost in himself, he had spoken almost in presumptuous disrespect to a man so distinguished, to a man whom he honored and whom he felt that he could even like?
“If I speak strongly,” he said, “it is because I feel strongly. If I did not feel strongly I would not attempt to withstand the amount of testimony against me.”
“Might I ask,” said Maskelyne, gently, in his inexplicable sympathy with the young fellow, “why, if you feel such confidence in all you say, you do not, without hesitation, enter on a life in accordance with your convictions?”
At last there was hesitation in the young stranger’s manner. He turned his hat nervously in his hand, and sat silent for a moment.
“You see,” he began, paused, and began again—“You see, if I were alone it would be one thing. But I’m not—not at all alone,” he added, evidently gaining confidence.
“Ah!” exclaimed the old lawyer, a sudden gleam of new intelligence shining in his dull, weary old eyes.
“And how am I to get married, Mr. Maskelyne?”
“The lady does not approve of your—poetic aspirations?”