“You may well be astonished, you duffer. To fix her affections on you with me in the neighborhood! But women were always strange. And men were deceivers ever.”
“All the more reason I shouldn’t deceive her. How glad I am I told her the truth. I breathe easier, there’s a weight off my mind.”
“You selfish beggar! And now it’s all over between you, I suppose, and our nice little constitutional quartette is broken up. And I thought it was going to be so jolly when you came down. Heigho!”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Matthew, with a touch of bitterness. “Eleanor—Mrs. Wyndwood and I are going to be better friends than ever—thank God!”
“Thank whom? Don’t be blasphemous.”
“Thank God,” repeated Matthew, firmly.
“Oh, well, you were always a Methodist parson. But if I were a Jew, I wouldn’t say grace over pork. Not a bad epigram that; I must get it into my comedy.”
Matthew shuddered. Herbert’s tone was desecrating. “You don’t understand,” he said.
“Don’t plume yourself on your superior intelligence, old man. Mine’s quite equal to the study of Plato. It isn’t such Greek to me as you imagine.”
“Well, whatever you think, you are quite wrong,” he replied, with spirit. “Our friendship is on a different plane. It is based on our common interest in Art—and Mrs. Wyndwood’s not the sort of woman you’ve had experience of.”