"Orders!" said Arthur, laughing. "You are going to marry by order?"
"Well, what did you do?" asked Conrad, rather piqued.
"Indeed yes, you are right But ours was an exceptional case."
"Mine is not," returned Conrad indifferently. "The thing is generally managed so in our set. My father will have it that I shall marry early and suitably, and he will stand no contradiction, except perhaps from you. You have impressed him so deeply that he will put up with absolutely anything it may please you to say or do. After all, I have nothing particular to urge against the marriage, except that I should have liked to be free a little longer."
Berkow shook his head. "I think, Con, you will do well to carry out your father's plan in this. So far as I could see during our last visit to Rabenau, Alma Berning is a charming girl, and it really is time for you to show more of the future peer and less of the wild lieutenant in your proceedings. He has got himself into some pretty scrapes, my young lieutenant!"
Conrad tossed his head.
"Yes, and on each occasion he has had to listen to a paternal lecture in which his brother-in-law has been held up as a pattern and extolled to the skies. I declare it has needed all my predilection for the model to keep me from detesting you! In fact, the whole marriage project dates from that. In one of these judicial encounters, I made the mistake of saying 'Arthur did much worse in his time; it is only since he has been married that he has become so remarkable for his excellence,' and then it immediately occurred to my father to have me married too.
"Well, I don't care! I have no objection to make to Alma, and besides I shall take example by you and Eugénie. You began your wedded life with the utmost indifference, if not with downright aversion, to one another, and you have ended by turning it into a perfect romance which has not spun itself out yet. Perhaps it will be the same with us."
A very sceptical smile played round Arthur's lips.
"I doubt it, my dear Con; you hardly seem to me to be cut out for a romance, and remember, every woman is not a Eugénie."