"There is one pleasure that has never palled on me, and that is the society of my travelling companion. You are the ideal one in many respects, Mariol; but if I could point out one virtue more than another that distinguishes you in that character, it is the letting a man enjoy all his bad humors, his fads, his follies, if you will, unchecked and unbridled. I have sometimes basely suspected you of sacrificing me in order to make copy of my infirmities. But, at any rate, I have enjoyed blessed liberty, and, whatever the result, I have profited by the semblance of a perfect tact and consideration."
"A roundabout way of warning me not to intrude my advice upon you now. But seriously, Clandonald, and at any risk, I must tell you that you need rousing. That past of yours, unsavory as it was through no fault of yours, has been long enough decently interred for you to forget it, and to recreate your life's happiness. One can't be sore always, any more than we can love always, or mourn always. And you, of all men the one best fitted to wear the yoke of your staid British virtues, to serve your country and your king at home, to be a model landlord, a husband and a paterfamilias, comme il y en a peu! For heaven's sake, accept the blessed opportunity of your present freedom, and make up for that wretched first mistake. You aren't happy, you have no ambition, no purpose, no zest in living. Get yourself a wife."
"This from Mariol, the scoffer, the celibate! My dear fellow, I forgive you your trespass upon forbidden ground, because I know you are sincere. But you forget one small, important fact. The person who bore my name, and her various works of evil, have so depleted my finances that, had I the courage, I haven't the wherewithal to hawk my wares in the marriage mart. I wonder if you know what it costs to keep a Lady Clandonald in the enjoyment of the domestic atmosphere of which you speak. I know to my cost. Unless she were a beautiful savage, content to retire with me to one of those isles of the South Sea poor Louis Stevenson idealized, I couldn't even give her a season in town, or a trip to Paris or Homburg, much less races, and all the bridge a woman needs; and so there'd be the devil to pay, you see. If she would set up a bonnet-shop, or a place for horribly dear frocks, and keep me on the proceeds—! but otherwise, I'm as poor as a rat, Mariol, and haven't your resources, or royalties, remember."
"A small matter, my dear lad, with the ever-continuing flood of American dollars pouring from West to East through the facile clasp of the fair beings by whom we are presently surrounded. And you would not run great risks. There is this to be said for them, that American ladies rarely degenerate into either bores, dupes or pieces of household machinery: 'Le familier vulgaire, utile et sans bouquet, comme le vin qu'on boit avec l'eau.' They progress with the epoch and the civilization that claim them. Take—as a matter of illustration merely—either of the two young women who grace our board."
"As a matter of illustration, merely," answered Clandonald, laughing, "I'd prefer to take the sweet child of nature, combining, with the vulgarity of a powdered nose, the eyes of an intelligent cherub recently short-coated."
"As you please," said Mariol, arching his brows resignedly. "My choice for you would have been the fine-grained daughter of the Puritans with hair the color of a hazelnut, the flat, straight back, and resolute figure gowned by Paquin. I dare say both ladies are accessible to what you have to offer them, or that either would soon fit into place in the long walk at Beaumanoir, among those strutting white peacocks against a background of clipped yews and sun-warmed ancient brick. No American girl could resist that walk and those white peacocks, Clandonald, take my word for it."
"Then marry one yourself, and I'll let the place to you for a song."
"I have still to see Tibet," answered the other, stopping to light a fresh cigar.
Their talk ended in a discussion wide afield from the subject with which it had begun. But when Mariol turned in, it was with a throb of secret satisfaction that he had been able, in the darkness, and apparently à l'improviste, to wing in the direction of his friend a shaft he had long held in reserve for him.
He had been with Clandonald, side by side, wading through the miserable mire of his divorce case, and rejoiced when he saw him rid for ever of the creature who had dragged him down. The two men had met first in South Africa, while Clandonald was lying ill of enteric, and Mariol, coming upon him by accident in the course of his own explorations for observation and adventure at the seat of war, had nursed him with the gentleness and devotion of a woman, until he was out of danger and ready for the voyage home. During his first convalescence, Clandonald had received the plainly unwelcome news of his wife's intended journey out, "to look after her dear old boy." The arrival of her errant ladyship, followed by the untoward discovery of her real motives in making this heroic effort, and the hardly concealed scandal of her companionship on the voyage, precipitated a relapse of Clandonald's malady, and the ultimate severance, some two years later, of his heavy marriage bond, borne during the lifetime of a boy who died through her neglect.