'Why should I marry Elizabeth?' he asked placidly.
'I don't mean that she herself is to be the blushing bride. She prefers a man with a taste in waistcoats, a flowing auburn moustache, and a tendency to bright neckties, none of which qualities or quantities you possess. She means to get you married to some one else.'
William slowly removed his pipe from his mouth and regarded me with intense earnestness. He is not the sort of person who lets his emotions ripple to the surface, so his serious mien surprised me. He raised his hand in a prophetic attitude and began to speak. 'Dr. Johnson has rightly said that the incommodities of a single life are necessary and certain, but those of a conjugal state are avoidable. Excellent philosophy. Sooner than get married, my dear madame, I would walk in the wilderness, conversing with no man; I would fly to the fastnesses of Tibet; I would make of myself a hermit in a cave that was strongly barricaded. I would eschew tobacco. I would pay, to the uttermost farthing, any bachelor tax imposed by the State.'
'Do you so utterly abhor the idea of marriage?' I asked, profoundly astonished.
'I do,' said William.
A strange sound broke on our ears. It seemed to come through the keyhole, and resembled the contemptuous sniff with which Elizabeth always expresses incredulity. But, of course, it couldn't have been that.
As I have said, Elizabeth never listens at doors.
CHAPTER VII
(William—although he has a great regard for Pepys—does not himself keep a diary. From time to time, however, he 'chronicles the outstanding events in his career,' as he puts it. The following is one of William's 'chronicles,' which shows more knowledge than I have of the happenings in this chapter.)