“No, I sha'n't hint. Hints belong to the unconsidered patience of fools. I won't give them an inkling of my real tactics. Let them lollop along in their own wretched fashion to some final imbecility! I have other matters to think of, Sara. Doesn't Disraeli's action say, as delicately as possible, that I am wasting my time over small men? I have been altogether too easy of access. Simplicity and consideration are thrown away on the Snookses and the Pawkinses! With these gentry, one must be a vulgar, bragging snob, or they think one is not worth knowing.”
“But you owe it to yourself and to Orange to hold the Meeting to-morrow?” she said, anxiously.
“There is a way out of it,” he answered, avoiding her eyes. “We can talk of that presently.”
“Nothing interests me more.”
“That is not true,” he said, taking a chair near her; “there are many things which must interest both of us much, much more than that stupid Meeting.”
“I prefer not to speak of them now, Beauclerk.”
“I can't go on in this uncertainty. I am beginning to think I am a blundering fellow—where women are concerned. When we were together as children, I seem to remember, looking back, that I always did the wrong thing. And later—when you came out and I fancied myself a man of the world, it was the same. I don't know exactly what a girl is at eighteen, but I know that a fellow of twenty-five is an ass. He is probably well-meaning: he isn't hardened by ambition and he is pretty sentimental, as a rule. Yet he doesn't have fixed ideas. One day it dawned upon me that I was in love.”
“Now don't say that.”
“I repeat it. I am far from wishing to pose as a martyr, but whenever one is happy, all one's friends think that one is going to make some fatal mistake. I suppose no battle can be won without a battle. But life has always had a good deal of painfulness to me, and I hate opposition. It isn't lack of courage on my part—I can fight an enemy to the death. When it comes to quarrelling with relatives or those I care about—well, I own I can seldom see good reasons for keeping a stiff neck.”