'Yes, but I thought you might have seen how foolish you were.'
'I shall never give up hope,' he replied; 'that is, until hope is impossible. Whatever made you think of such a thing?'
'But do you not see the madness of your plan?'
'No, there is nothing mad in it. By the way, Luscombe, I am awfully hungry. Let us go in here and get some dinner. Don't think, old man, that I can't see your point of view,' he said when we had taken our seats in the dining-room of the restaurant, 'I can. From your standpoint, for a man in my position, without name, without home, without friends, without money, to aspire to the hand of Lorna Bolivick, is to say that he is fit for a lunatic asylum. But I can't see things as you do. God Almighty didn't put this love in my heart for nothing, a love which has been growing every day since I saw her. Why, man, although I have said nothing to you, she is everything to me, everything! That is, from the personal standpoint. If I did not believe in God, I should despair, but, believing in Him, despair is impossible.'
'God does not give us everything we want,' I replied; 'it would not be good for us if He did. Possibly He has other plans for her.'
'That may be so,' he replied calmly, 'but I am going to act as though He meant her for me.'
I looked across the dining-hall as he spoke, and saw, sitting not far away from us, a party which instantly attracted my attention.
'I should not, if I were you,' I said.
'Why?'
'Look!' I replied, nodding towards the table I had noticed.