There is a common delusion that all men make love alike. Never was there a greater mistake. There is no one particular in which a man of sense is more strongly differentiated from a fool than in his love-making. Skelton had the most exquisite tact in the world. He had to admit to his own wrongdoing, but he did it so adroitly that he easily won forgiveness. He had to make terms for Lewis, and he had to tell Sylvia that he could not make her a very rich woman; but he made the one appear the spontaneous act of Sylvia’s generosity, and the other was the most powerful proof of his affection for her. So can a man of brains wrest disadvantage to his advantage.
Sylvia heard him through, making occasionally little faint stands against him that never amounted to anything. There was already treason in the citadel, and all she wanted was a chance to surrender. Skelton knew all the transformations of the cunning passion called love, and Sylvia’s flutterings were those of a bird in the snare of the fowler.
An hour had passed since the storm had risen, and it was now dying away as rapidly as it had come up. Sylvia slipped from Skelton and went and stood by a window at the farther end of the hall. The exaltation was too keen; she craved a moment’s respite from the torrent of her own happiness. When Skelton joined her and clasped her hand, both of them were calmer. They experienced the serener joy of thinking and talking over their happiness, instead of being engulfed in the tempest of feeling.
“But do you know, dear Sylvia,� said Skelton, after a while, “that in marrying me you will not be marrying the richest man in Virginia?�
“I shall be marrying the finest man in Virginia, though,� answered Sylvia, with a pretty air of haughty confidence.
“But still we sha’n’t starve. We shall have Deerchase.�
“I always liked Deerchase better than any place in the world.�
“And you will have a middle-aged husband.�
“I like middle age.�
“Who has a bad habit of reading more hours than he ought to.�