‘I should hate the fellow.’
‘Not if you met him. He can be very companionable, though I never saw any one take less trouble to please. He is popular almost everywhere.’
‘I know I should hate him.’
‘My cousin Nina thought the same, and declared, from the mere sight of his photograph, that he was false and treacherous, and Heaven knows what else besides; and now she’ll not suffer a word in his disparagement. She began exactly as you say you would, by a strong prejudice against him. I remember the day he came down here—her manner towards him was more than distant; and I told my sister Kate how it offended me; and Kate only smiled and said, “Have a little patience, Dick.”’
‘And you took the advice? You did have a little patience?’
‘Yes; and the end is they are firm friends. I’m not sure they don’t correspond.’
‘Is there love in the case, then?’
‘That is what I cannot make out. So far as I know either of them, there is no trustfulness in their dispositions; each of them must see into the nature of the other. I have heard Joe Atlee say, “With that woman for a wife, a man might safely bet on his success in life.” And she herself one day owned, “If a girl was obliged to marry a man without sixpence, she might take Atlee.”’
‘So, I have it, they will be man and wife yet!’
‘Who knows! Have another weed?’