After supper the two men made themselves thoroughly comfortable in great leather chairs before Leonard's promised fire, and smoked and chatted.
“You look just the same, old boy,” said Leonard, scanning Darley carefully. “But the hair is a little thin in front there, and I think I see the growing spot of baldness, as Ike Marvel has it. Did you ever read that great book of his, 'A Bachelor's Reveries?' No? Well, you should. I find it sweetest company. Yes, you are the same old sobersides—a great deal deeper than you look, as the little boy said when he fell into the well. And not married yet, eh?”
“Who, the little boy?”
“No; you, you rogue! I should have thought you would have gone off long ago.”
“Why?”
“A hard question to answer. Are we not always in a condition of mild wonder that our friends have not gone over to the married ranks, when we ourselves have not? However, from floating gossip—that tongue's flotsam—I have heard that you meditate going over.”
“Eh?” said Darley, pricking up his ears.
“Why,” answered Leonard, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, “Beau Brummel cannot pay court to a beauty without the world knowing it! I, even I, have heard of Miss Bella Charteris. She is not the sort of girl, if I may make so bold, that I would have imagined you pinning yourself to. I should have thought some quiet, sober, angelic little woman like——”
“Like who?”
“Well, I was going to say like her sister,” said Leonard softly, bending his head over his pipe as he slowly refilled it. “But you do not know her sister, I think.”