‘You must have had a very hard youth,’ she said compassionately, when he had given her a sketch, half sad, half humorous, of his life at the Marischal College, Aberdeen.
‘Yes, and I am likely to have a hard manhood,’ he answered gravely. ‘How can I ever dare ask a woman to share a life which has at present so little promise of sunshine?’
‘But do not all your great men begin in that kind of way?’ interrogated Celia; ‘Sir Astley Cooper, for instance, and that poor dear who found out the separate functions of the nerves that direct our thoughts and movements—though goodness knows what actual use that discovery could have been to anybody——’
‘I think you must mean Sir Charles Bell,’ suggested Gerard, rather disgusted at this flippant mention of genius.
‘I suppose I do,’ said Celia. ‘He wrote a book about hands, I believe. I only wish he had written a book about gloves; for your glove-maker’s idea of anatomy is simply absurd. I never yet could find a maker who understands my thumb.’
‘What an advantage my sex has over yours in that respect!’ remarked Gerard.
‘How so?’
‘We never need wear gloves, except when we dance or when we drive.’
‘Ah!’ sighed Celia, with her wondering look. ‘I suppose there are sane men in big places like London and Manchester, who walk about without gloves. They wouldn’t do it here, where everybody knows everybody else.’
‘I think I have bought about two pairs of gloves since I attained to man’s estate,’ said Gerard.