Page:Hichens - The Green Carnation.djvu/36

28 I let it come if it will. To get drunk deliberately is as foolish as to get sober by accident. Do you know my brother? When he is not tipsy, he is invariably blind sober. I often wonder the police do not run him in."

"Do they ever run any one in? I thought they were always dismissed the force if they did."

"Probably that is so. The expected always happens, and people in authority are very expected. One always knows that they will act in defiance of the law. Laws are made in order that people in authority may not remember them, just as marriages are made in order that the divorce court may not play about idly. Reggie, are you going to make this marriage?"

"I don't know," said the boy, rather fretfully. "Do you want me to?"

"I never want any one to do anything. And I should be delighted to continue not paying for your suppers. Besides, I am afraid that marriage might cause you to develop, and then I should lose you. Marriage is a sort of forcing house. It brings strange sins to fruit, and sometimes strange renunciations. The renunciations of marriage are like white lilies—bloodless, impurely pure, as anæmic as the soul of a virgin, as cold as the face of a corpse. I should be afraid for you to marry, Reggie! So few