"Thank you, I'm sure, Mr. Snell."
"Don't," he said. "These things don't merit thanks. I've never told a lie, and so I won't hold my reason back. I think a lot of your character: that's why I should be sorry if harm happened to you."
"We've understood each other very well, I believe."
"Very well indeed; and you've taught me a lot about the female sex. And, but for you, I don't suppose I should ever have knowed anything at all about them. I may tell you, owing to your large understanding, that I've often considered about the sense of marrying. But I'm sure I don't know. When you look round--the heart sinks."
"Yes, it does."
Mr. Snell did look round, and the beautiful woman roused some faint, feeble flicker of his anæmic passion.
"I grant you that the wedded state as shown by other people--and yet I won't go so far as Bartley Crocker do."
"How far's that then?"
"Mind, don't you say it against him. I've no wish to be thought a tale-bearer. But, in open speech at the bar of Shillabeer's public-house, he said that though you hear of happy marriages, you never see them. Now that's too far-reaching--eh?"
"Not much. He's not far out, I reckon."