The Rector, returning to his friend's side after one of his walks about the room, laid his strong hand on his shoulder, and the sense of its strength was welcome. "Challis, Challis!" said he, earnestly, "can you not read in your own words how well you know that you are acting under panic? Ask your heart—ask your conscience—if a wish for an extension of time would be possible in a mind really made up—a mind really believing such a step as you propose to take a right and honourable one! Confess that the reason you would be glad of a respite is that you are none so sure, after all, that what you do is the wisest course for either yourself or your wife; or, for that matter, for Judith."
Challis seemed for a moment puzzled about his meaning. Then he said, "Do you mean that you doubt the reality of my—of my love for Judith?" He seemed half ashamed of it, too!
"I mean that I think you are besotted about her—bewitched by her woman's beauty—the slave of an inclination you may live to repent one day in sackcloth and ashes. Well!—one can understand it all, down to the ground. You are not the first...."
Challis flushed a little angrily, and began, "Do you mean that Judith is...." He hesitated.
The Rector caught his meaning, and interrupted him. "A flirt?" said he. "No—I didn't mean that; though, mind you, I can't give the young lady complete absolution on that score. What I meant was that mighty few men in the world get through life without knowing all about this sort of thing from experience. Perhaps your catching the fever so late in life, after two marriages, makes the case exceptional. However, as I told you, I don't regard you as a rational being at present; so I won't preach."
He had not removed his hand from Challis's shoulder, and the action of the latter as he turned away and, crossing to the window, looked out at the starlit night, had its shade of protest in it, though it could not be said that he had exactly shaken the hand off.
Athelstan Taylor waited a moment, looking half sorry, half amused, but not the least disposed to weaken his words. Then he followed his friend to where he stood looking out, and said as he replaced his hand—only that this time he laid his arm fully across the shoulder—"Remember the compact, my good man, remember the compact! I'm to say what I like."
"You are to say what you like, dear Yorick, and soften nothing. You think me a fool, and I am one. But the fact that my folly is carried nem. con. won't get me out of the difficulty it has got me into. Blame it as you will—but your blame won't answer the question I ask myself every hour of the day: what sort of value will Judith set on the love of a man who hung fire about carrying out his pledges till it was too late, on the miserable plea that it was ten chances to one another twelvemonth of vacillation might be possible? What right has any man to put expediencies, calculations of chance, the unforeseen outcomes of this or that, against the well-being of the woman he is all the while coolly asking to give herself away to him? No, Yorick, I haven't got it in me to go and say to Judith, 'I love you; it is true. But if I wed you now, while we know we are free to wed, and then some time repentance comes, it will be a bitter thought to me that—had I waited' ... et cetera—don't you see?"
"My dear Challis, I am no match for the eloquence of a gifted author who is pleading the cause of his own inclinations...."
"Even when he ends up with 'et cetera'?"