"Oh, Geoffrey, how could you do it?" she says, reproachfully, alluding to his marriage,—"you whom I have so loved. What would your poor father have thought had he lived to see this unhappy day? You must have been mad."
"Well, perhaps I was," says Geoffrey, easily: "we are all mad on one subject or another, you know; mine may be Mona. She is an excuse for madness, certainly. At all events, I know I am happy, which quite carries out your theory, because, as Dryden says,—
'There is a pleasure sure
In being mad, which none but madmen know.'
I wish you would not take it so absurdly to heart. I haven't married an heiress, I know; but the whole world does not hinge on money."
"There was Violet," says Lady Rodney.
"I wouldn't have suited her at all," says Geoffrey. "I should have bored her to extinction, even if she had condescended to look at me, which I am sure she never would."
He is not sure of anything of the kind, but he says it nevertheless, feeling he owes so much to Violet, as the conversation has drifted towards her, and he feels she is placed—though unknown to herself—in a false position.
"I wish you had never gone to Ireland!" says Lady Rodney, deeply depressed. "My heart misgave me when you went, though I never anticipated such a climax to my fears. What possessed you to fall in love with her?"
"'She is pretty to walk with,
And witty to talk with,
And pleasant, too, to think on.'"
quotes Geoffrey, lightly, "Are not these three reasons sufficient? If not, I could tell you a score of others. I may bring her down to see you?"