“Good God, madam! what if they are?”
“You mustn't talk that way!” she said, sharply. “Of course Catholics may be good men, but, still, I shouldn't like it in French.”
“Like what?”
“We'd better be married in Trinidad.”
There you are, satisfactory, inclusive, concise! I ask: “How shall I attain my soul's desire?” She answers: “Be married in Trinidad.”
We left Professor Simpson at St. Pierre. He was intending to climb Mont Pelée and extract knowledge from its oracular mouth. If that solemn, grim, stony, and sometimes irascible sphinx of a volcano started in to talk to him, it's possible that the volcano had the last of the argument. Perhaps not. I haven't heard. He was a very persistent logician. Maybe he meant to cast himself forlornly into the crater. The idea is luminous, romantic. But I think, on the whole, that he did nothing of the kind.
Mrs. Mink says she would never have accepted him, and was merely vexed to see him outwit me, which it must be admitted he did. But my feelings are like those of a man who has succeeded by a narrow margin.
We lie now in harbour at Trinidad, whose green hills rise sumptuously out of the blue of the Caribbean. The future promises all happiness and varied interests; among which interests, I suspect, will be the coming Mrs. Ulswater's masterly reorganisation of me. Do I flatter myself, or does she, as it almost seems, look forward to that task with real enthusiasm? Wonderful woman!
Adieu—Ulswater.
P. S. The argument from analogy was the sound one—the tropics, the temperate zone, and the intentions of Providence. Convince her of your imperative need of her, and you have made the imperative appeal. So far I see.