"I, really— Miss King is, I think, quite able to manage her own affairs; and I shouldn't in any case care to interfere, beyond offering advice in case your friend should turn out to be an obviously unsuitable person."
"That's all right. I can't expect you to say more than that. I knew all along that you didn't want to have the thing put to you at the point of the bayonet. You'll recollect that I had no wish to force it on you."
"You mustn't suppose," said the judge, "that I'm in any way committed to a definite support—"
"Certainly not," said Meldon. "A man in your position couldn't. I thoroughly understand that. And I hope you don't think that I've been in any way disrespectful to you. I didn't mean to be. I have the highest possible regard for all judges, and what I said just now about legal fictions was simply meant to avoid prolonging a discussion which can't have been pleasant for you. And after all, you know, it was rather absurd your trying to come the judge over me, considering what we were talking about. You wouldn't have done it, I'm sure, if you'd stopped for a moment to consider the peculiar and rather delicate circumstances under which we are carrying on this negotiation. I expect the habit of talking in that judicial way was too strong for you. You forgot for the moment what it was we were speaking about, and thought it was some ordinary law case. The force of habit is a wonderful thing. Have you ever noticed—"
"So far as I have been able to discover up to the present," said the judge, "you are greatly interested in bringing about a marriage between your friend and my niece."
"Interested is a dubious sort of word to use, and I don't like it. Let us be quite clear about what we mean. In one sense I am interested; in another sense I am entirely disinterested—which is the exact opposite. You catch my point, don't you? It is a very instructive thing to reflect on the curious ambiguity of words. But I am sure you can tell me more about that than I can possibly tell you. With your legal experience you must have come across scores of instances of the extraordinarily deceptive nature of words."
"You thought apparently that I should be likely to object to the marriage, and therefore you tried to keep me out of Ballymoy, using means which might be described as unscrupulous."
"I've already apologised for the paraffin oil," said Meldon. "A full and ample apology, such as I have offered, is generally considered to close an incident of that kind. In the old duelling days, when men used to go out at early dawn to shoot at each other with pistols, the one who had shied the wine glass at the other the night before often used to apologise; and when he did the pistols were put up into their case, and both parties went back comfortably to breakfast. I've often wondered that men of your profession—judges, I mean—didn't do something effective to put a stop to duelling. It was always against the law, and yet we had to wait for the slow growth of public opinion—"
"Then," said the judge, "you changed your mind, and came to the conclusion that my presence here wasn't likely to interfere with your friend's plans. Now will you tell me why—"
"I've made three distinct and separate efforts," said Meldon, "to change the subject of conversation. I tried to start you off on habits, a subject on which almost every man living can talk more or less. I thought you'd have taken that opportunity of telling the story about the horse which always stopped at the door of a certain public house, even after the temperance reformer had bought him. I'm sure you'd have liked to tell that story. Everybody does."