"Clara," replied Sir Willoughby, in dramatic epigram, "is perfection."
"I rejoice," the Rev. Doctor responded; taught thus to understand that the lovers' quarrel between his daughter and his host was at an end.
He left the table a little after eleven o'clock. A short dialogue ensued upon the subject of the ladies. They must have gone to bed? Why, yes; of course they must. It is good that they should go to bed early to preserve their complexions for us. Ladies are creation's glory, but they are anti-climax, following a wine of a century old. They are anti-climax, recoil, cross-current; morally, they are repentance, penance; imagerially, the frozen North on the young brown buds bursting to green. What know they of a critic in the palate, and a frame all revelry! And mark you, revelry in sobriety, containment in exultation; classic revelry. Can they, dear though they be to us, light up candelabras in the brain, to illuminate all history and solve the secret of the destiny of man? They cannot; they cannot sympathize with them that can. So therefore this division is between us; yet are we not turbaned Orientals, nor are they inmates of the harem. We are not Moslem. Be assured of it in the contemplation of the table's decanter.
Dr Middleton said: "Then I go straight to bed."
"I will conduct you to your door, sir," said his host.
The piano was heard. Dr. Middleton laid his hand on the banisters, and remarked: "The ladies must have gone to bed?"
Vernon came out of the library and was hailed, "Fellow-student!"
He waved a good-night to the Doctor, and said to Willoughby: "The ladies are in the drawing-room."
"I am on my way upstairs," was the reply.
"Solitude and sleep, after such a wine as that; and forefend us human society!" the Doctor shouted. "But, Willoughby!"