He said it in the cool, dispassionate way that he said most things, without any embarrassment. Embarrassments of all sorts had been sloughed off during the fifteen years of Walter’s business and social achievements. Gage looked at him frowningly.
“You don’t mean you’re serious—you?”
“Why not—I?” repeated Carpenter, grinning imperturably.
He didn’t look serious or at least impassioned, Gage might have said. His long figure was stretched out comfortably. It was slightly thickened about the waist, and his sleek hair was thinning as his waist was thickening. His calm, well-shaven face was as good looking as that of a well-kept, well-fed man of thirty-seven is apt to be. It was losing the sharpness and the vitality of youth but it did not yet have the permanent contours of its middle age. And it bore all the signs of healthy living and living that was not only for the sake of satisfying his appetites.
“Why—it never occurred to me,” said Gage, puffing a little harder at his cigar.
“That I might get married?”
“I don’t know. I rather thought that if you married you’d pick a different sort of a girl.”
“I might have done that a long time ago. I’ve seen enough sorts. No—I never have seen one before who really—”
He paused reflectively, unaccustomed in the language of emotion.
“She’s a fine looking girl.” Gage felt he must pay some tribute.