Sulky silence.
"I know you better than to believe you would be cad enough to marry her against her will. Were you to do so, I fail to see in what respect you would be any better than Otis."
No reply.
Mayne stood up, searching his book-shelves for the "Divina Commedia."
"Bert, did you ever hear of Dante?"
"No. Nobody as lives hereabouts, is he?"
Mayne did not smile.
"I'll tell you something of him—how all his life he lived for the memory of a dead woman—a woman of whom he knew even less than you know of Millie, and lived in hope, and cleanly, for her sake. Now, Millie is not dead. You are but a boy, and she a girl. Five or six or seven years hence, if you make a career for yourself what is to prevent you from trying again? By that time she would at least realise the enduring nature of your love; whereas now, neither you nor I nor she could say that it will last. It is just a boy's hot flame."
Bert stamped.
"You don't believe me capable of it," he stormed. "You just think that if you can get her out of my way now, that'll be the end of it all. You don't think I've the manhood or the pluck to stick to the thing through years of absence—"