"Chat away, old fellow. I've no reply to make, save that the opposing force was irresistible--as I think you'll allow."
"My dear Streightley, I hope I'm a true friend, but I don't think you could have a worse confidant in an affair of this kind, so far as giving any opinion on an unknown young lady is concerned----"
"But suppose the young lady is not unknown to you?"
"Not unknown to me! Well, that alters the case of course. But, God bless my soul, who can--who can have won your love in this sudden way, Robert? You're not a man of impulse; you're accustomed to think deeply, and weigh and balance before committing yourself--you would not do any thing rash. Who on earth can it be?"
"I'm a bad hand at concealing any thing of this sort," said Streightley with a half-rueful smile. "Indeed, I think I must seem awkward about the whole business; but the truth of it is, old friend--I'm madly in love with Miss Guyon, and I hope to make her my wife."
"Miss Guyon?"
"Ay, Miss Guyon. It has not been a long acquaintance, I know; but I believe those things never are--I mean that--you know what I mean. But you know her; at least you've seen her, and--that must be my excuse for the rashness, and the folly, and whatever the world chooses to call it. For she is very lovely, isn't she, Charley?"
"Very lovely, indeed!" said Yeldham.
And then, as though by a tacit understanding, both men leaned back in the carriage, and delivered themselves up to their own reflections.
Needless to say what were Robert Streightley's. Vague desires to call up well-remembered expressions of Katharine's faze, which yet refused to be recalled at the moment; dim distrusts and doubts of his own chance of winning her hand; soul-disturbing thoughts of her friendship with Gordon Frere; wild plots of laying Mr. Guyon under even greater obligations to him, and thus making sure of his alliance and support; dreamy reminiscences of how she had looked and moved, and what she had done and said on the several occasions when he had seen her.