Boreham's appearance did not gain in attractiveness by the proximity of his host. He began again in his rapid rather high voice.
"You see for yourself," he said, turning back to Lady Dashwood: "here he is—the very picture of what is conventionally correct, his features, his manner, before which younger men who are not so correct actually quail. I'm afraid that now he is Warden he has lost the chance of becoming a free man. I had hopes of one day seeing him carried off his feet by some impulse which fools call 'folly.' If he could have been even once divinely drunk, he might have realised his true self, I am afraid now he is hopeless."
"My dear man, your philosophy of freedom is only suitable for the 'idle rich.' You would be the first person to object to your cook becoming divinely drunk instead of soberly preparing your dinner."
Boreham always ignored an argument that told against him, so he merely continued—
"As it is, Middleton, who might have been magnificent, is bound hand and foot to the service of mere propriety, and will end by saddling himself with some dull wife."
The Warden stood patient and composed while Boreham was talking about him. He took out his watch and glanced at Lady Dashwood.
"I've given May five minutes' grace," she said, and then turned her face again to Boreham. "But why should Jim marry a dull wife? It will be his own fault if he does."
Gwen in her large chair sat stupefied at the word "wife."
"No," said Boreham, emphatically. "It won't be his fault. The best of our sex are daily sacrificed to the most dismal women. Men being in the minority now—dangerously in the minority—are, as all minorities are, imposed upon by the gross majority. Supposing Middleton meets, to speak to, in his whole life, a couple of hundred women here and elsewhere, none of whom are in the least charming; well, then, one out of these two hundred, the one with the most brazen determination to be married, will marry him, and there'll be an end of it. The kindest thing, Lady Dashwood," continued Boreham, "and I speak from the great love I have for Middleton, is for you just to invite with sisterly discrimination some women, not quite unbearable to Middleton, and he, like the Emperor Theophilus, will come into this room with an apple in his hand and present it to one of them. He can make the same remark that Theophilus made to the lady he first approached."
"And what was that?" asked Lady Dashwood. She was amused at finding the conversation turn on the very subject nearest her heart. Even Mr. Boreham was proving himself useful in uttering this blunt warning of dangers ahead.