Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/40



“Then there is no chance at all for me?”

“My dear young lady!” I said generously, “present company, you know — ”

“Is always accepted? Thank you. How unfortunate for me that present company does not always propose!”

“With me,” I said, “all this is a matter of principle.”

“Your principal,” she answered, “is likely to draw liberal interest from those to whom you confide it. Society, hereabouts, has not much in the way of diversion. We shall all, I am sure, watch with curiosity the progress of your experiment. Already, I find myself advantageously enlightened. I’ve always heard a wife referred to as the better half.”

“Please remember,” said I, “that we have not been talking of a married man’s better half, but of a bachelor’s better quarters.”

“True,” said Miss Berrith, dryly. “What a future is yours! It reminds me of what Tennyson says: ‘Ah, what shall I be at fifty