“That’s what all the girls say,” laughed Howard. “But of course you will. It’s the only thing to do.”
“Then why don’t you get married?” asked Alice, tracing one of the flowers in her wrapper with her slim, brown forefinger.
“I couldn’t if I would and I wouldn’t if I could.”
“Oh, you could get a nice girl to marry you, I’m sure,” she said, the colour rising faintly toward her long, downcast lashes.
“But who would get the money? It takes money to keep a nice girl.”
“Oh, not much,” said Alice earnestly, yet with a queer hesitation in her voice. “You oughtn’t to marry those extravagant girls. I’ve read about them and I think they don’t make very good wives, real wives to save money and—and care.”
“You seem to know a good deal about these things for your age,” said Howard, much amused and showing it.
“I don’t care,” she persisted, “you ought to get married.”
Howard felt that this was the time to clear the girl’s mind of any “notions” she might have got. He would be very clever, very adroit. He would not let her suspect that he had any idea of her thoughts. Indeed he was not perfectly certain that he had. But he would gently and frankly tell her the truth.
“I shall never get married,” he said, sitting up and talking as one who is discussing a case which he understands thoroughly yet has no personal interest in. “I haven’t the money and I haven’t the desire. I am what they would call a confirmed bachelor. I wouldn’t marry any girl who had not been brought up as I have been. We should be unhappy together unsuited each to the other. She would soon hate me. Besides, I wish to be free. I care more for freedom than I ever shall for any human being. As I am now, so I shall always be, a wandering fellow without ties. It is not a pleasant prospect for old age. But I have made up my mind to it and I shall never marry.”