"I don't feel like settling down all of a sudden," said Ashley with a smile.
They walked side by side for a few paces; then Bowdon remarked,
"Depend upon it, it's a good thing to do, though."
"It's a question of the best date," said Ashley, much amused at his companion. "Now at your age, Lord Bowdon—"
"Confound you, Ashley, I'm not a hundred! I say it's a good thing to do. And, by Jove, when it means a lump of money too!"
A pause followed; they walked and smoked in silence.
"Good creatures, women," remarked Bowdon.
Ashley did not find the remark abrupt; he traced its birth. Alice had left much the same impression behind her in his mind.
"Awfully," he answered; there was in his voice also a note of remorse, of the feeling that comes when we cannot respond to a kindness so liberally as it deserves.
"Of course they aren't all alike, though," pursued Bowdon, as though he were reasoning out an intricate subject and coming on unexpected conclusions. "In fact they differ curiously, wonderfully."