“Of course I shall,” he answered promptly. “I’ll get fat and pompous in fifteen years or so. You know that dish, Mammy—Angels on Horseback—oysters wrapped up in bacon? I’m in a hurry to wrap my little oyster of a soul in a lot of nice fat bacon. Then I’ll be comfortable. Nothing better, is there, than making money and getting married?”
“Don’t be cynical,” she said, gently.
“You know I’m not. I’m only trying to do what I can. I know what’s good for me. Little Giulia’s good for me. She’s all spirit, but it’s the nice, old-fashioned, hopeful kind. I never could tell her anything about the ice-cap, for instance; nothing that would hurt her; and being by nature very candid, that’ll help me to learn not to have anything to tell. I’ll have to grow placid, don’t you see?”
He sat up and looked at her, with his diabolic smile and his soft eyes.
“Now, then, will you tell Father in some nice mendacious way that I’ve got serious and want to settle down to something? Is it to be college or business?”
“I think college,” she said, smiling back at him. “You know, after all, Bertie, there may be something left for you to learn.”
“All right!” he answered, cheerfully. “And then—come with me to see my pastry-cook’s daughter.”
“But shouldn’t you bring her here?”
“I want you to see her in all her gorgeousness.”
“But it isn’t quite the thing. You see, you’re not—you can’t be actually engaged to her.”