"Well," briskly, "this is business. I will be very business-like. What do you want me to do, give you a receipt? Come, I want your name to help fill my book, and I am making as earnest a business as I know how, of securing names."
"Miss Benedict, I am not in the least afraid of becoming a drunkard."
"Mr. Matthews, that has nothing whatever to do with the business in hand. What I want is your name on my total abstinence pledge. If you do not intend to be a drinker, you can certainly have no objection to gratifying me in this way."
"Ah! but I have. The promise trammels me unnecessarily and foolishly. I am often thrown among people with whom it is pleasant to take a sip of wine, and it does no harm to anybody."
"How can you be sure of that? There are drunkards in the world, Mr. Matthews; is it your belief that they started out with the deliberate intention of becoming such, or even with the fear that they might? or were they led along step by step?"
"Oh, I know all that; but I assure you I am very careful with whom I drink liquor. There are people who seem unable to take a very little habitually; they must either let it alone, or drink to excess. Such people ought to let it alone, and to sign a pledge to do so. I never drink with any such; and I never drink, any way, save with men much older than I, who ought to set me the example instead of looking to me, and who are either masters of themselves, or too far gone to be influenced by anything that I might do."
Was there ever such idiotic reasoning! But the young man before her was very young, and did not know his own heart, much less understand human nature. He was evidently in earnest, and would need any amount of argument—would need, indeed, a much better knowledge of himself—before she could convince him of his false and dangerous position; and her opportunity, if it were one, was swiftly passing. What was there that she could accomplish here and now? Since he was in such a state of bewilderment as to logic, she resolved to lay a delicate little snare for his feet.
"Well, I am sorry that you will not sign my pledge. I do not like your arguments; I think they are painfully weak. I wish at your leisure you would look into them carefully, and see if you think them worthy of lodgment in an honest mind. But in the meantime, there is something else. This little favor that I am about to ask, will you promise to grant?"
The young man looked immensely relieved. He had not expected her to abandon the ground so promptly; he had been on the verge of pleading fear lest his horse was restive, and so breaking away from the embarrassment. He tumbled eagerly into the pretty net. What could she ask that would not be easy enough, now that the total abstinence pledge was out of the way? He could think of nothing else that a lady such as Miss Benedict certainly was, could ask, which would not be comparatively easy of accomplishment.