“Well,” said Ingram, doubtfully, “perhaps not. The worst of it is, that you take such odd readings of people. However, when you marry her, as I now hope you may, you will soon find out; and then, if you are not grateful, if you don’t understand and appreciate then the fine qualities of this girl, the sooner you put a millstone around your neck and drop over Chelsea Bridge the better.”
“She will always have in you a good friend to look after her when she comes to London.”
“Oh, don’t imagine I mean to thrust myself in at your breakfast table to give you advice. If a husband and wife cannot manage their own affairs satisfactorily, no third person can; and I am getting to be an elderly man, who likes peace and comfort and his own quiet.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense,” said Lavender impetuously. “You know you are bound to marry, and the woman you ask to marry you will be a precious fool if she refuses. I don’t know, indeed, how you and Sheila ever escaped—”
“Look here, Lavender,” said his companion, speaking in a somewhat more earnest fashion, “if you marry Sheila Mackenzie I suppose I may see something of both of you from time to time. But you are naturally jealous and exacting, as is the way with many good fellows who have had too much of their own will in the world; and if you start off with the notion now that Sheila and I might ever have married, or that such a thing was ever thought of by either of us, the certain consequence will be that you will become jealous of me, and that in time I shall have to stop seeing either of you if you happen to be living in London.”
“And if ever the time comes,” said Lavender, lightly, “when I prove myself such a fool, I hope I shall remember that a millstone can be bought in Victoria road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy.”
“All right; I’m going to sleep.”
For sometime after Ingram was permitted to rest in peace, and it was not until they had reached some big station or other toward morning that he woke. Lavender had never closed his eyes.
“Haven’t you been asleep?”
“No.”