"Simply because I think it dangerous," replied Morley. "She is very beautiful, very graceful, very charming. With such a brother it would be quite beyond my most romantic ideas to make her my wife; and as to the other sort of connexion which you speak of, I can conceive a man being betrayed into it by accident, or rather by a combination of unfortunate circumstances, but could never dream, for my own part at least, of sitting down deliberately to plan such a thing. It does not enter into my scheme of life, Lieberg."
Lieberg laughed.
"I know that I am not without strong passions," continued Morley, "as well as you do. When I love, it will be vehemently, ardently; and whatever may be her fortune or station, I will make that woman my wife if she will become so. It is for this very reason that I do not choose to run the risk of falling in love with any one that I would not choose to marry. I shall therefore take care not to visit such dangerous precincts again."
"Well, if you don't, Ernstein," said Lieberg, "I think I shall." Morley was mortified. "Perhaps, Lieberg," he replied, "if you do go, you may not find the opportunity that you expect."
"Nay, nay," answered Lieberg, laughing again; "you have no right to excite one's compassion for this fair orphan, and then, with a resolution to abandon her yourself, prevent any other generous man from showing her his sympathy."
"You mistake me," replied Morley, gravely. "I do not intend to abandon her myself."
"Why, you said you never intended to see her again!" exclaimed Lieberg, with surprise.
"I did," replied Morley; "but I intend also, Lieberg, the moment I quit your house to go to that of my worthy friend, Mr. Hamilton, to tell him this young lady's story; to beg him, with that prompt benevolence for which he is famous, to investigate the whole circumstances, and on my part to do whatever may be necessary to enable Miss Barham to extricate herself from the situation in which she is placed. I feel myself lucky in knowing such a man; his years and character enable him to do what I could not do, and I can trust at once to his wisdom and to his zealous benevolence."
"You are quite right, Morley," answered Lieberg. "You are acting generously and well--not perhaps so well for the girl's happiness as if you had followed the other plan--but at all events, using self-denial that will do you good, and neither doing yourself nor making her do anything that is irretrievable. Heaven forbid that I should interfere for a moment to spoil such a scheme! Every man in life must calculate which he thinks will procure him the greatest sum of happiness, keen joys or calm pleasures. One man will argue that the joys--which undoubtedly are the brighter of the two commodities--are only followed by those counterbalancing griefs which moralists tell us of, in consequence of man's subserviency to various foolish prejudices and unjust regulations in his artificial state of being. Others again may contend that calm pleasures, though not so brilliant, are more durable; that they are extended over a greater space; that if a man obtains many joys and shakes off many griefs by throwing from him the prejudices of society, on the other hand, the very struggle with those prejudices is in itself an annoyance equal to the endurance of them all. I have never calculated the matter very nicely myself, but I recollect once going to see a fair cousin of mine who, when I went in, was in the act of giving two of her sons some jelly, or jam, or something of that kind. The one boy spread it thinly over a large piece of bread and butter; the other ate it plain all at once; my cousin, who was a very wise girl as well as a pretty one, let each do as he liked; and I, who stood by and watched, thought that it was a good picture and a good lesson of life."
"You mean," said Morley, "that the one boy was the image of the man who chooses the calmer pleasures spread over the greater space; the other, the representation of him who gives himself up to the brighter, but the briefer joys of life?"