"I don't know, Paul. I'm quite incompetent to pronounce any opinion on such matters; only--only see here: I look on you as on a younger brother, and, prompted by my regard for you, I may say many things which you may dislike."
"Well, say away, old George; you won't offend me."
"Well, then, if this is a good honest girl, and you don't intend to marry her, you ought not to be meeting her, and walking with her, and leading her to believe that she will attain to a position through you which she never would otherwise; and if she isn't an honest girl you ought never to have spoken to her."
Paul Derinzy laughed, the quiet easy chuckle of a man of the world, as he replied to his simple senior:
"She is a good, honest girl, no doubt of that. But suppose the question of marriage had never risen between us, and she still liked to meet me and to walk with me, what then? In the gravel paths of Kensington Gardens, Pamela herself might have strolled with Captain Lovelace himself without fear. Why should not I with--with this young lady?"
"Because, though you don't know it, you're deceiving yourself and deceiving her; because the whole thing is incongruous and won't fit, however you may try to make it do so; because it's wrong, however much you may slur it over. Look here, Paul; suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you wanted to marry this girl--you're as weak as water, and there's no accounting for what you might wish--you know your people would oppose it in the very strongest way, and----"
"Oh, if I chose it, my 'people,' as you call them, must have it, or leave it alone, which would be quite immaterial to me."
"Yes, yes, no doubt; but still----"
"Look here, George; let's bring this question to a practical issue. I'm ten times more a man of the world than you, though you are an old fogey, and clever and sensible and all that. What you are aiming it is that I must give up this girl. Well, then, shortly, I won't!"
"And why won't you?"