"Nonsense," exclaimed the other; "the circumstances are the same in both cases, only the position is reversed. If I am free, she is married; did you not see her husband there?--a fat, white-faced man, not so high as a musquetoon. But what is that to me? The love of a month does not trouble itself about matrimony; and my great grandmother's starched ruff is, of all things, the emblem that I hate; for she dared not even kiss her daughter for fear of its crumpling. Why should you heed, either? A little pardonable polygamy is an excellent good receipt for keeping the taste fresh by constant variety. Heaven help me! if all my wives were counted throughout the cities of civilized Europe, I fear I should have to transfer me to Turkey, and lodge next door to the Sublime Porte."
Algernon Grey smiled, whether he would or not, at his friend's account of himself, but still he answered seriously: "The case is this, William; whatever I may judge I have a right to do myself; there is one thing, I am sure, I have no right to do, which is, to make a young, gay, happy heart, unhappy, sad, and old,--ay, I say old; for the touch of disappointed love is as withering as the hand of Time. No, no, I have no right to do that!"
"Good faith! you are most scrupulously wrong, my noble cousin," answered Lovet, "and do injustice both to yourself and others. Man, and woman too, were born for pleasure; changing, varying, at each step we take. It is a sort of duty in my eyes to give every human being brought in contact with me whatever joy I can afford them; and I should as much think of refusing a poor fellow a good dinner, for fear he should not have one to-morrow, as fail to make love to a pretty lady who expects it; because I cannot go on loving her all my life. Every woman has a pleasure in being made love to, and I say, Out upon the niggard who will not give her a share of it when he has the opportunity. Every man to his own whim, however; for, after all, these are nought but whims, or the effects of a most pragmatical education. But follow your own course, follow your own course, and go on picking the bare bone of a very musty morality, fancying it all the while venison and capon. Perhaps, after all, you are nought but a true and devoted knight and lover; and the thought of the rare beauty you left four or five years ago in England, like a certain composition of salt and nitre in a pickling-pan, may be preserving you, uncorrupted as a neat's tongue, sound and safe, but somewhat hard and shrivelled withal. Well, she is a glorious creature, it must be confessed; and I, being your cousin and hers too, may venture to confess, without suspicion of flattery, that rarely have I seen beauty equal to hers. The bud has burst into the rose since you left it, and though there may be a thorn or two, the flower is well worth gathering."
Algernon Grey mused and answered in a thoughtful tone, as if arguing with himself. "Taste is a strange thing," he said, "marvellously strange! Who can give reason for his likings and dislikings?--and yet there must be some course of reasoning below them all. Or is it instinct, William, that teaches us instantly to appreciate and seek that which is suitable to ourselves? There are several kinds of beauty--"
"True, noble cousin," answered Lovet, in a bantering tone.
"Ay, but two very distinct classes into which all minor differences perhaps may be arranged," his friend continued.
"Perhaps so," rejoined the other; "let us hear more of the two ranks."
"Why there is first," replied Algernon Grey, "that sort of beauty which dazzles and surprises--brilliant and commanding, I think men call it--the bold firm eye, the Juno frown, the look of fiery passion, sparkling as a diamond but as hard, bright as a sword but oftentimes as ready to wound. With me it alarms rather than attracts, rouses to resistance instead of subduing."
"Go on," said Lovet, in a quiet but meaning tone, "I understand."
"Then there is the other sort," his friend continued, "that which wins rather than triumphs; the gentle, the gay, more than the keen and bright; yielding to, rather than demanding love; the trusting, the confiding look, instead of the ruling and commanding; the lip where smiles seem to find their native home; the soft half-shaded eye full of veiled light, speaking at times the sportiveness of innocent thought, under which may lie, concealed against the time of need, higher and stronger powers of heart and mind."