“And about marrying and that sort of thing; seriously, you know—your glass is empty again; do have some more.”
So William poured a little into his glass and his heart seemed to stop and listen, although he looked as if he only half heard, and was weary of the subject.
“And as we were saying, about marrying—and, by-the-bye, Maubray, it’s the sort of thing would just answer you, a quiet fellow—why don’t you think about it, old fellow, eh?”
It was a way Trevor had of always forgetting those little differences of circumstance which, in contrast, redounded to his importance, and he asked such questions, of course, quite innocently.
“You know very well I couldn’t,” said William, poking the fire, unbidden, with a few angry stabs. “How the devil can a fellow marry in college, and without a shilling?”
“Ah, ah, it isn’t quite so bad; come! But of course there is a difference, and, as you say, there’s lots of time to look about—only if a fellow is really spooney on a girl—I mean awfully spooney, the big wigs say, don’t they?—the best thing a fellow going to the bar can do is to marry, and have a wife and lots of babbies—it makes them work so hard—doesn’t it? You’re going to the bar, you say, and that is the way to get on, eh?”
“I’m glad there’s any way, but I don’t mean to try that,” murmured William, a little bitterly, and after a pause, during which who knows what a dance his fancy led him? “I know that sort of talk very well; but I never could see what right a fellow has to carry off a poor girl to his den merely that her hunger, and misery, and cries may stimulate him to get on at the bar; and the fact is, some fellows are slaves, and some can do just as they please; and life is damnably bitter for some, and very pleasant for others, and that’s the whole story; you can marry whenever you please, and I can’t.”
“I’m afraid it’s a true bill,” said Trevor, complacently; whereupon there issued a silence, and twice and again was William Maubray moved to break it with a question, and as often his voice seemed to fail him. At last, however, he did say, quite quietly—
“And why don’t you marry, if you think it so good a thing?”
Was it something in William’s tone and air, although he was trying his best to seem quite unconcerned, that elicited the quick, and somewhat cunning glance that Trevor shot on him?