But as a lover—a wooer? Passion, impetuosity, a total absorption, great eloquence in few words, the eyes beating the words in persuasion—such seemed, roughly, the requisites, as learnt by those who had sat at Harry Belfield's feet and marked his practical expositions of the subject. Andy was neither passionate nor eloquent, not even in glances. Nor was he absorbed. Gilbert Foot and Co. from nine-thirty to two-thirty: the House from two-thirty to eleven, with what Gilly contemptuously termed "stoking" slipped in anywhere: there was hardly time for real absorption. He was as hard-worked as Mr. Freere himself, and, had he married Mrs. Freere, would probably have made little better success of it. He was not trying to marry Mrs. Freere; but he was trying to win a girl who had listened to wonderful words from Harry Belfield's lips and suffered the persuasion of Harry Belfield's eyes.
In varying fashion his friends made their jesting comments, with affection always at the back of the joke; nay more, with a confidence that the efforts they derided would succeed in face of their derision—like the comic papers of future days.
"He wants to marry, so he must make love; but I believe he hates it all the time," said the Nun compassionately.
"That shows his sense," remarked Sally Dutton.
"He's a natural monogamist," opined Billy Foot, "and no natural monogamist knows anything about making love."
"He ought to have been born married," Gilly yawned, "just as I ought to have been born retired from business."
Mrs. Billy (née Amaranth Macquart-Smith) was also of the party. Among these sallies she spread the new-fledged wings of her wit rather timidly. To say the truth, she was not witty, but felt bound to try—a case somewhat parallel to his at whom her shaft was aimed. She was liked well enough in the circle, yet would hardly have entered it without Billy's passport.
"He waits to be accepted," she complained, "as a girl waits to be asked."
"Used to!" briefly corrected Miss Dutton.
Billy Foot cut deeper into the case. "He's never imagined before that he could have a chance against Harry. He's got the idea now, but it takes time to sink in."