“I’m sorry to hear that. It won’t do. We must conform. Besides, in that case the person decidedly isn’t suitable to you. You of all men must marry a lady.”
“I should never think of any one that wasn’t a lady.”
“Is emancipation getting as far as that? Do ladies enter into that kind of union?”
“I don’t know of any example. That’s just why the idea tempts me.” Barfoot would go no further in explanation.
“How about your new algebra?”
“Alas! My dear boy, the temptation is so frightful—when I get back home. Remember that I have never known what it was to sit and talk through the evening with ordinary friends, let alone—It’s too much for me just yet. And, you know, I don’t venture to work on Sundays. That will come; all in good time. I must grant myself half a year of luxury after such a life as mine has been.”
“Of course you must. Let algebra wait.”
“I think it over, of course, at odd moments. Church on Sunday morning is a good opportunity.”
Barfoot could not stay to see the old year out, but good wishes were none the less heartily exchanged before he went. Micklethwaite walked with him to the railway station; at a few paces’ distance from his house he stood and pointed back to it.
“That little place, Barfoot, is one of the sacred spots of the earth. Strange to think that the house has been waiting for me there through all the years of my hopelessness. I feel that a mysterious light ought to shine about it. It oughtn’t to look just like common houses.”