"Ah!" said Lawrence. "Sit down and be comfortable, Jack. When one is really worried, nothing like a perfect chair. Take my own. Now, then, let us talk it over."
"It doesn't look well," thought Jack.
"Always face the situation," said Lawrence (he had got an uncommonly awkward situation of his own to face, and it was a little relief to turn to some one else's). "Nothing done by blinking facts. Here we are. Young lady of eighteen or so—just released from a convent; ignorant of the world; pretty; attractive ways; rich, as girls go—on the one hand. On the other, you: good-looking, as my cousin Agatha L'Estrange says, though I can't see it; of a cheerful disposition—aptus ludere, fit to play, cum puellâ, all the day——"
"Don't chaff, Colquhoun; it's too serious."
But Colquhoun went on:
"An inflammable young man. Well, with any other girl the danger would have been seen at once; poor Phillis is so innocent that she is supposed to be quite safe. So you go on calling. My cousin Agatha writes me word that she has been looking for the light of love, as she calls it, in Phillis's eyes; and it isn't there. She is a sentimentalist, and therefore silly. Why didn't she look in your eyes, Jack? That would have been very much more to the purpose."
"She has, now. I told her yesterday that I—I—loved Phillis."
"Did she ask you to take the young lady's hand and a blessing at once? Come, Jack, look at the thing sensibly. There are two or three very strong reasons why it can't be."
"Why it can't be!" echoed Jack dolefully.
"First, the girl hasn't come out. Now, I ask you, would it not be simply sinful not to give her a fair run? In any case you could not be engaged till after she has had one season. Then her father, who did not forget that he was grandson of a Peer, wanted his daughter to make a good match, and always spoke of the fortune he was to leave her as a guarantee that she would marry well. He never thought he was going to die, of course; but all events I know so much of his wishes. Lastly, my dear Jack Dunquerque, you are the best fellow in the world, but, you know—but——"