"Oh, if I chose it, my 'people,' as you call them, must have it, or leave it alone, which would be quite immaterial to me."
"Look here, George; let's bring this question to a practical issue. I'm ten times more a man of the world than you, though you are an old fogey, and clever and sensible and all that. What you are aiming it is that I must give up this girl. Well, then, shortly, I won't!"
"For a reason you can't understand, you old mole, burrowed down here under your paintings, and your fugues, and your dreary old German philosophers--because I love her; because I think of her from morning till night, and from night till morning again; because her bright face and her gay creamy skin come between me and those beastly old minutes and memoranda that we have to write at the shop; and when I'm lying awake in Hanover Street, or even sitting surrounded by a lot of gabbling idiots in the smoking-room of the club, I can see her gray eyes looking at me, and----"
"Oh Lord!" said George Wainwright, with a piteous smile; "I had no idea I'd let myself in for this!"
"You have, my dear old George, and for a lot more at a future time. Just now I came out to you because I was horribly restless, and Billy fastened himself on to me at the club, and I could not shake him off. But I want to talk to you about it seriously, George--seriously, you understand!"
"Whenever you like, Paul; but I expect you'll only get one scrap of advice out of me, repeated, as I fear, _ad nauseam_."
"Give her up! give her up! give her up! Cato's powers of iteration in the _delenda est Carthago_ business will prove weak as compared to mine in this."
"Buffon gives stubbornness as a characteristic of your class, Paul. Goodnight, old man."
"Goodnight, God bless you! To-morrow as per usual, I suppose?" and he was gone.
Alone once more, George Wainwright threw himself again into the easy-chair and renewed his pipe; but he shook his head more than ever, and when he did speak, it was only to mutter to himself: "Worse than I thought! Don't see the way out of that. Must look into this, and take care that Paul does not make a fool of himself."
When the clock struck midnight he rose, yawned, stretched, and seemed more than half inclined to turn towards his cosy bedroom, which opened from the studio; but he shook himself together, and saying, "Poor dear, she would not sleep if I did not say goodnight to her, I suppose!" lit a lamp, and took his way across the garden to the house.