“The poor girl was frightened, no doubt. We don't have fracases at Font Abbey. On this one spot of earth comfort reigns, and balmy peace, and shall reign unruffled while I live. The passions are not admitted here, sir. Gracious Heaven forbid! I'd as soon see a bonfire in the middle of my dining-room as Jealousy & Co.”
“In that case you had better exclude the cause.”
“The cause is your imagination, my good friend; but I will give it no handle. I will exclude David Dodd until she has accepted you in form.”
With this understanding the friends parted.
After dinner that same day Arthur sat in the drawing-room with Lucy. He was reading, she working placidly. She looked off her work demurely at him several times. He was absorbed in a flighty romance. “I have dropped my worsted, Arthur. It is by you.”
Arthur picked the ball up and brought it to her; then back to his romance, heart and soul. Another sidelong glance at him; then, after a long silence, “Your book seems very interesting.”
“I'll fling it against the wall if it does not mind,” was the infuriated reply. “Here are two fools quarreling, page after page, and can't see, or won't see, what everybody else can see, that it is an absurd misunderstanding. One word of common sense would put it all right.”
“Then why not put the book down and talk to me?”
“I can't. It won't let me. I must see how long the two fools will go on not seeing what everybody else sees.”
“Will not the number of volumes tell you that?”