“Well, I’m only one of a crowd then,” retorted Philip, with a dash of irritation. “Those confounded Ottley girls are always on hand—a good deal too much so.”
“Are they? Look here now, Phil. What is there about that girl that makes a difference between her and any other girl?”
“Ah! You—even you, you old ruffian, own that there is a difference?”
“Not so fast, my dear chap. I asked you the question. But if you want me to answer it myself, I reply ‘Nothing.’”
“What? You don’t see any difference?”
“Not a particle,” responded his tormentor, blandly. Philip stared for a moment. He hardly knew what to say. Then:
“Well, with all your shelliness, you crustaceous old cuss, I gave you credit for more discrimination. Why, confound it all, look at her alongside the rest of the crowd here. Isn’t she a head and shoulders above them all—in every particular?”
“H’m, h’m! Oh, yes! no doubt. But that isn’t saying very much. She looks thoroughbred, I admit, and talks well, and has some ideas—not bad ones, either; not that I’ve ever been favoured with them myself, for I’ve never laid myself out for that honour. Women, you see, are like children. As long as you keep them at arm’s length they respect you. Directly you have ever so little to do with them, then good-bye to your peace, for they will allow you none; then, presto, the collar is round your neck and you find yourself cast for the rôle of general poodle before you know where you are. It’s fetch-and-carry, will-you-do-this and would-you-mind-doing-that. And then you are expected to act the sympathetic listener to all their infernal egotistic fads; and God help you if at any moment you forget the sympathetic part of it. But to return to our sheep. You think this particular girl an angel, because she’s good-looking and thoroughbred, and has a hovering sort of suggestion about her of being an ill-used mortal and welcoming a sympathetic spirit, and all that sort of thing. Then, again, you run against her up here, where you’re both of you showing at your best because you’ve neither of you anything in the world to put you out—splendid weather, lovely country, good old times all round—sort of paradise in which she stands out as the Eve to you, and I daresay you as the Adam to her. That’s not life, my dear fellow; that’s not life. A mere summer idyll and no more. Can’t possibly last, you know.”
“And why the deuce can’t it last?” said Phil, who had been listening somewhat impatiently to this harangue.
Fordham emitted a short, dry guffaw.