“So that you had a long conversation together on this topic?”
“An entire evening. I dined with him alone, and we spoke of very little else as we sat over our wine.”
“I wish you could remember what he said. Don’t you think you could recal some at least of it?”
“I can’t say that I could, and for this reason: that he kept always interpolating little traits of what he knew of life, and all his vast and varied experiences of human nature. These sort of men are rather given to this.”
“Are they?” asked she; and it was not easy to say whether her accents implied a simple curiosity, or a dreamy indifference. Mr. M’Kinlay accepted them in the former sense, and with some pomposity continued:
“Yes; I have frequently remarked this tone in them, as well as the tendency to see twice as much in everything as it really contains.”
“Indeed!” said she, and now her voice unmistakably indicated one who listened with eager attention to the words of wisdom. “Did he show this tendency on the occasion you speak of?”
“Markedly, most markedly. It is very strange that I cannot give you a more accurate account of our interview; but he addled my head about pictures and early art; and then, though always temperate, his wine was exquisite. In fact, I carried away a most confused impression of all that took place between us.”
“You remember, however, the arrangements that were settled on, What were they?”
“The great point of all, the one you insisted on, I was, I may say, peremptory upon.”