“‘Those budge doctors of the Stoic fur,
Praising the lean and sallow abstinence;’
“You take nothing. I shall abuse my wine-merchant.”
“You certainly seem as anxious as Comus that I should drink, Bruce,” said De Vayne, smiling; “but really I mean that I wish for no more.”
Bruce saw that he had overstepped the bounds of politeness, and also made a mistake by going a little too far. He pressed De Vayne no longer, and the conversation passed to other subjects.
“Anything in the papers to-day?” asked Brogten.
“Yes, another case of wife-beating and wife-murder. What a dreadful increase of those crimes there has been lately,” said De Vayne.
“Another proof,” said Bruce, “of the gross absurdity of the marriage-theory.”
De Vayne opened his eyes wide in astonishment. Knowing very little of Bruce, he was not aware that this was a very favourite style of remark with him,—indeed, a not uncommon style with other clever young undergraduates. He delighted to startle men by something new, and dazzle them with a semblance of insight and reasoning. “The gross absurdity of the marriage-theory,” thought De Vayne to himself; “I wonder what on earth he can mean?” Fancying he must have misheard, he said nothing; but Bruce, disappointed that his remark had fallen flat, (for the others were too much used to the kind of thing to take any notice of it), continued—
“How curious it is that the whole of the arguments should be against marriage, and yet that it should continue to be an institution. You never find a person to defend it.”
“‘At quis vituperavit?’ as the man remarked, on hearing of a defence of Hercules,” said De Vayne. “I should have thought that marriage, like the Bible, ‘needed no apology.’”