All this did Major Favraud, in his own merry mood, communicate to us on the occasion of his memorable visit to San Francisco, when he remained our delighted guest during one long delicious summer season. Of Gregory, we never heard.
"I had hoped to hear of your marriage long before this," I said to him one day. "Tell me why you have not wedded some fair lady before this time. Now tell me frankly as you can."
"Simply because you did not wait for me."
"Nonsense! the truth. I want no badinage"
"Because, then—because I never could forget Celia—never love any one else."
"She was one of Swedenborg's angels. Major Favraud—no real wife of yours. She never was married"—and I shook my head—"only united to a being of the earth with whom she had no real affinity. Choose yours elsewhere."
"I believe you are half right," he said, sadly. "She never seemed to belong to me by right—only a bird I had caught and caged, that loved me well, yet was eager to escape."
"Such, was the state of the case, I cannot doubt; a more out and out flesh-and-blood organization would suit you better. Your life is not half spent; the dreary time is to come. Go back to Bellevue, and get you a kind companion, and let children climb your knees, and surround your hearth. You would be so much happier."
"Suggest one, then. Come, help me to a wife."
"No, no, I can make no matches; but you know Madame de St. Aube is a widow now. You were always congenial."