Stuart. And yet Van Tromp, who hasn’t a cent in the world, and never will have, if he has to make it himself, will say it as glibly as need be.
Fred. It’s that makes me desperate. I try to be good company, but I feel all the time as if it weren’t an even race, and so I can’t.
Stuart. My dear boy, no race in this world is even. If it were anything but a woman’s heart in question, I would bet on you as the winner; but as that commodity is only to be represented by the algebraic x, I never wager on it.
Fred (scornfully). How learnedly a bachelor does talk of women’s hearts! One would think he had broken a lot in order to examine their contents.
Stuart (a little angrily). I never lost a girl through faint heart,—or lost my temper with both her and my best friend.
Fred (apologetically). There! Of course you are right and I am a fool.
Stuart (looking at watch). There being no dissent to that opinion, and the ladies being now ready to see us, you had better go downstairs and show Miss Wortley that the Fred Stevens of a year ago is still in the flesh.
Fred (going to b. d.). And you?
Stuart. I’ll stay here and have a cigar.
[Exit Fred, b. d.