“I dare say it was. We have had two stories from Brian in the meantime.”
“My dear Harold, your case is far from being unique. Some of its elements may present new features, but, taken as a whole, it is commonplace. You have ambition, but you have also a father.”
“So far I am in line with the commonplace.”
“You cannot hope to realize your aims without money, and the only way by which a man can acquire a large amount of money suddenly, is by a deal on the Stock Exchange or at Monte Carlo, or by matrimony. The last is the safest.”
“There’s no doubt about that. But—”
“Yes, I know what’s in your mind. I’ve read the scene between Captain Absolute and his father in ‘The Rivals’—I read countless fictions up to the point where the writers artlessly introduce the same scene, then I throw away the books. With the examples we have all had of the success of the mariage de convenance and of the failure of the mariage d’amour it is absurd to find fault with the Johnsonian dictum about marriages made by the Lord Chancellor.”
“I suppose not,” said Harold. “Only I don’t quite see why, if Dr. Johnson didn’t believe that marriages were made in heaven, there was any necessity for him to run off to the other extreme.”
“He merely said, I fancy, that a marriage arranged by the Lord Chancellor was as likely to turn out happily as one that was—well, made in heaven, if you insist on the phrase. Heaven, as a match-maker, has much to learn.”
“Then it’s settled,” said Harold, with an affectation of cynicism that amused his friend and puzzled Brian, who had ears. “I’ll have to sacrifice one ambition in order to secure the other.”
“I think that you’re right,” said Edmund. “You’re not in love just now—so much is certain.”