"I don't see why I should not," said John doggedly, seeing that he was found out.
"You don't see why you should not? Why the thing is perfectly absurd, not to say utterly impossible! John, you are certainly mad."
"I don't see why," repeated John. "I am a grown man. I have good prospects—"
"Good prospects!" ejaculated the vicar in horror. "Good prospects! Why, you are only an undergraduate at Cambridge."
"I may be senior classic in a few months," objected John. "That is not such a bad prospect, it seems to me."
"It means that you may get a fellowship, probably will—in the course of a few years. But you lose it if you marry. Besides—do you know that Mrs. Goddard is ten years older than you, and more?"
"Impossible," said John in a tone of conviction.
"I know that she is. She will be two and thirty on her next birthday, and you are not yet one and twenty."
"I shall be next month," argued John, who was somewhat taken aback, however, by the alarming news of Mrs. Goddard's age. "Besides, I can go into the church, before I get a fellowship—"
"No, you can't," said the vicar energetically. "You won't be able to manage it. If you do, you will have to put up with a poor living."