"I am sure Richard does that."
"I hope so. It may be that you can be a power for good in his life, taking a sincere interest in his work, and letting your own honesty be a kind of bulwark to him in the corruption which will be sure to assail him in his career. Never hedge with him, Ann, in the little things; then he will have an ideal of his wife which will keep him from ever being tempted to hedge in the big things."
"You know it is not my nature to hedge," I replied, rather emphatically.
"You have never been tempted to," she answered. "I know that you would never come down to lying about the price of a fur coat, but luxuries happen not to be your weak point."
"Fortunately not," I said, with a little laugh, for the discussion seemed a waste of time to me. Still I know that newly engaged girls and brides have to listen to a lot of admonishing from their female relatives. I wished, upon this occasion, that I could take mine as indifferently as I once saw a bride take hers. I was a child at the time, but even then I was impressed by the absurdity of a conventional aunt giving, in a well-modulated voice, the usual advice about "bear and forbear," as the pretty little bride-niece sat by and allowed big, conventional tears to roll down her cheeks, while she kept on industriously cleaning her diamond rings!
"What is my weak point?"
I asked the question, half hoping that the talk would be steered away from the radiant subject, but to my surprise I found that I was moving around in a circle.
"Your weak point is Richard Chalmers—now and for the rest of your life!"
"You mean?"
"I mean that you idealize him and worship him."