“I have got all sorts of ideas—I told you the other day. They are all mixed up together and I want a fresh impression.”
“My impressions are never fresh,” Bernard replied.
“They would be if you had a little good-will—if you entered a little into my dilemma.” The note of reproach was so distinct in these words that Bernard stood staring. “You never take anything seriously,” his companion went on.
Bernard tried to answer as seriously as possible.
“Your dilemma seems to me of all dilemmas the strangest.”
“That may be; but different people take things differently. Don’t you see,” Gordon went on with a sudden outbreak of passion—“don’t you see that I am horribly divided in mind? I care immensely for Angela Vivian—and yet—and yet—I am afraid of her.”
“Afraid of her?”
“I am afraid she ‘s cleverer than I—that she would be a difficult wife; that she might do strange things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Well, that she might flirt, for instance.”