“Go on,” said Carfax, when Tregarvon stopped to refill his pipe.
“Then one day, out of a clear sky, zip! comes Uncle Byrd with his will and his millions. After which, of course, Elizabeth can’t throw me over without impoverishing herself; and it is equally out of the question for me to let her do it. Moreover, it is imperatively up to me to make good before I marry her. If I don’t, uncharitable people will say that I let go of the business end of things because I knew that my wife’s money would stop all the holes to keep the wind away. There you have it—sermon length.”
Carfax smoked in sober silence for quite a few minutes. Then he said mildly: “Do you know, Vance, I don’t more than half like your attitude—as you’ve just expressed it?”
Tregarvon’s smile was a grin.
“Tell me what there is about it that you don’t like, and I’ll change it, Poictiers. You are by long odds the best friend I have in the world, and I’d change a dozen attitudes for you, any day in the week.”
“It isn’t lover-like,” Carfax objected.
“You mean that it is too purely cousinly? I can’t very well help that phase of it, you know; we are cousins, and we have been trotting around together, more or less, ever since Noah walked out of the ark. Nothing like that for killing sentiment.”
“But sentiment shouldn’t be killed, if you are going to marry Elizabeth,” insisted the purist.
“We have threshed all that out, time and again, down to the final spear of straw, Elizabeth and I,” Tregarvon explained carelessly. “At first we did try to galvanize ourselves into some of the sentimental throes, but it was such a ridiculous little comedy that Elizabeth herself called it off. We are sufficiently fond of each other; Uncle Byrd’s will is mandatory, and we shall be able to live together without quarrelling. What more could you ask?”
“I don’t know,” said Carfax thoughtfully. “Your summary fits in pretty accurately with the way of the world. Yet, if I had to change places with either of you, I fancy I should ask a good bit more.”