“Really? I’m so glad.”
“Hurrah!” cried René, “you think I’ll have to live up to it and settle down.”
“It would certainly be a splendid thing if——”
The Professor’s whole attitude toward him was changed. Already, it was clear, he was beginning to plan a grand scene of reconciliation, a reformed René, a forgiving Linda, the Smallman family in the background, symbolical of Impregnable Matrimony. René caught the hint and his mind played with it and blew it out into a grotesque. It gave him so much pleasure that he chuckled and said:
“It won’t do, you know. We couldn’t come together again without a scandal.”
The Professor was so intent on his own thoughts that he did not notice the savage irony of the remark. He said:
“It would soon die down.”
“Sooner than the other?”
“Well——!”