“You think B’s feelings wouldn’t be at all likely to—to change?”
“That depends on the sort of man he is. But if he is an able man, with intellectual interests which engross him-a man who has chosen his path in life—a man to whom women’s society is not a necessity—”
“He’s just like that,” said the girl, and she bit the head off a daisy.
“Then,” said the philosopher, “I see not the least reason for supposing that his feelings will change.”
“And would you advise her to marry the other—A?”
“Well, on the whole, I should. A is a good fellow (I think we made A a good fellow), he is a suitable match, his love for her is true and genuine—”
“It’s tremendous!”
“Yes—and—er—extreme. She likes him. There is every reason to hope that her liking will develop into a sufficiently deep and stable affection. She will get rid of her folly about B, and make A a good wife. Yes, Miss May, if I were the author of your novel I should make her marry A, and I should call that a happy ending.”
A silence followed. It was broken by the philosopher.
“Is that all you wanted my opinion about, Miss May?” he asked, with his finger between the leaves of the treatise on ontology.