“Admitting there is warmth and color in some of your artistic creations, old fellow, I should think you would find these scarcely available of winter nights, eh?”
Robert laughed; his laugh was short, though, and bitter. He had taken keen pleasure in the cynical worldly wisdom and unsentimental judgment of this man.
“If you can’t afford the wife, then let the wife afford you,” began Frost’s logical reasoning. “You have brain, muscle and youth. Marry them to that necessary adjunct which you do not possess, and which the government refuses to supply. This is perfectly practical. The whole question of marriage is too much a matter of sentiment; too little a matter of judgment. Now, the son of a millionaire without an idea above his raiment and his club, devoid of morals and of brains, marries the daughter of a silver king. What is the result? A race of vulgar imbeciles.”
Here Frost, more wickedly practical, continued: “Now, you are of gentle blood, being fitted out by nature with the most unfortunate combination of attributes. Nature has given you much more than your share of intelligence and manly beauty, together with most refined and sympathetic sensibilities and luxurious tastes, and then has placed you in an orbit representing intelligence, aristocracy and wealth. Here she has left you to revolve with the greater and lesser luminaries, and that with the slenderest of incomes, which is not as yet greatly increased by your profession. You doubtless find that it requires considerable financiering to do these things deemed necessary to maintain your position in the constellation.”
“It is rather annoying to be poor,” Robert answered in a carefully repressed voice. A hard sigh followed, and there flashed through him the hot consciousness of the bitter truth. For that special reason no word had ever crossed his lips that could, by any means, be twisted into serious suit with the fair sex. It was generally accepted that he was not a “marrying” man.
They were, both of them, men who would at first sight interest a stranger. The younger of the two you might have seen before if you frequented the ultra-fashionable dinner parties, luncheons, etc., of polite New York. Anywhere, everywhere, was Robert Milburn a special guest and a general favorite.
He was medium-sized, delicately featured, with a look of half-lazy enthusiasm. You would set him down at once as an artistic character; at the same time, there was in his make-up and bearing, that which bespeaks an ambitious nature. His companion, who appeared older, was a man of statelier stamp, tall and sufficiently athletic. His face was well finished and had a certain air of self-possession, which not a few name self-conceit, and resent accordingly.
“Ah! Robert, you have entirely too much sentiment, my boy. Do not waste yourself. I will cite you a girl—there’s Frances Baxter. True, she is not good looking, in fact, I presume quite a few consider her extraordinarily plain. But that excessive income is worth your while to aspire to—such a name as Milburn is certainly worth something.”
With an earnestness of tone and manner which the gossipy nature of the talk hardly seemed to call for, Robert nervously threw aside his crumpled napkin and looked sharply at his companion, saying: