‘You are splitting hairs, and I can’t match you at that. What I mean in plain English is, that I don’t see why your finding a scarf should necessitate or excuse you for breaking an engagement.’
‘I didn’t find the scarf; it found me. And I didn’t break the engagement; an engagement, to my thinking, is not breakable; breaking suggests force; an engagement dissolves. What is it but the outward wording of an inward state of mind existing between two mutually attracted people? the state of mind being changed—lo!—pff!’
‘You exasperate me beyond words, Rob, with your this and your that, all of it as thin as your scarf; and, what is worse, you do not seem to feel the gravity of it all, not in the least. You say in August, “Mark, congratulate me, I am the happiest man alive; I am going to be married.” In October you say, “Mark, I am a subject for congratulation, I am a disengaged man.”
‘As a friend of both yours and Mabel’s, I ask why, and you answer by holding up that miserable, dangling scarf, and say: “This is why; I found this, and I am going across the water to find the owner.”’
‘Excuse me, but I said “This scarf found me”—therein lies a great difference.’
‘It is all so trivial I wouldn’t forgive any man living but you.’
‘Thank you.’
The scarf, floated by the breeze, caught on Rob’s shoulder; he drew it slowly down; it lengthened out with the gentle strain and fell in a misty heap to his knee.
‘Do put that cussed thing away,’ said Mark, irritably, ‘and tell me, if you are ever going to, where it came from.’
‘I can tell you that better when I have found out myself.’