Harris put down his glass rather hurriedly.
“If you don’t mind, old man,” he interrupted, “I’d really rather you didn’t. She’ll talk it over with my wife, and—well, I should not be happy, taking credit that I do not deserve.”
“But you do deserve it,” I insisted; “it was your suggestion.”
“It was you gave me the idea,” interrupted Harris again. “You know you said it was a mistake for a man to get into a groove, and that unbroken domesticity cloyed the brain.”
“I was speaking generally,” I explained.
“It struck me as very apt,” said Harris. “I thought of repeating it to Clara; she has a great opinion of your sense, I know. I am sure that if—”
“We won’t risk it,” I interrupted, in my turn; “it is a delicate matter, and I see a way out of it. We will say George suggested the idea.”
There is a lack of genial helpfulness about George that it sometimes vexes me to notice. You would have thought he would have welcomed the chance of assisting two old friends out of a dilemma; instead, he became disagreeable.
“You do,” said George, “and I shall tell them both that my original plan was that we should make a party—children and all; that I should bring my aunt, and that we should hire a charming old château I know of in Normandy, on the coast, where the climate is peculiarly adapted to delicate children, and the milk such as you do not get in England. I shall add that you over-rode that suggestion, arguing we should be happier by ourselves.”
With a man like George kindness is of no use; you have to be firm.