“Ah!” observed the doctor sententiously, “but he’s had to work for it, mark you! He’s had the most extraordinary life, they tell me. He was at one period of his career a bartender on the Rand, a man was saying at the club the other day. But most of his life he’s lived in Canada, I gather. He was telling us the other evening, before you and Mary came down, that he was once a brakeman on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He said he invested all his savings in books on engineering and read them in his brakeman’s van on his trips across the Dominion. Ah! he’s a fine fellow!”
He lowered his voice discreetly.
“And a devilish good match, eh, Horace?”
The young man flushed slightly.
“Yes,” he said unwillingly.
“A dam’ good match for somebody,” urged the doctor with a malicious twinkle in his eye.
“Here, Doc,” said Horace, suddenly turning on him, “you stick to your bugs and germs. What do you know about matchmaking, anyway?”
Dr. Romain chuckled.
“We bacteriologists are trained observers. One learns a lot watching the life and habits of the bacillus, Horace, my boy. And between ourselves, Parrish would be a lucky fellow if ...”
Trevert turned to him. His face was quite serious, and there was a little touch of hauteur in his voice. He was the 17th Baronet.