“About?” said Bayle. “About? I don’t know. I have thought of such a thing as my little pupil forming an attachment, but it seemed to be a thing of the far-distant future.”
Sir Gordon shook his head.
“There is nothing then now?”
“Oh, absurd! Why, she is only eighteen!”
“Eighteen!” said Gordon sharply; “and at eighteen girls are only cutting their teeth and wearing pinafores, eh? Go to: blind mole of a parson! Why, millions of them lose their hearts long before that. Come, come, man, wake up! A pretty watchman of that fair sweet tower you are, to have never so much as thought of the enemy, when already he may be making his approach.” Bayle turned to him, looking half-bewildered, but the look passed off.
“No,” he said firmly; “the enemy is not in sight yet, and you shall not have cause to speak to me again like, that.”
“That’s right, Bayle; that’s right. Dear, dear,” he sighed as they walked slowly towards the city, “how time does gallop on! It seems just one step from Millicent Luttrell’s girlhood to that of her child. Yes, yes, yes: these young people increase, and grow so rapidly that they fill up the world and shoulder us old folk over the edge.”
“Unless they have yachts,” said Bayle, smiling. “Plenty of room at sea.”
“Ah, to be sure; that reminds me. I have been at sea. Man, man, what an impostor you are.”
“I!” exclaimed Bayle, looking round at his companion in a startled manner.