Then Tony began again. It had been said of him that his worst fault was his readiness to respond, that he did not know what it was to be on his guard, and he treated Maradick now with a confidence and frankness that was curiously intimate considering the length of their acquaintance. At length he spoke of Alice Du Cane. “I know my people want it, and she’s an awful good sort, really sporting, and the kind of girl you’d trust to the end of your days. A girl you’d be absolutely safe with.”
“Of course. We’ve known each other for years. We’re not very sentimental about it, but then for my part I distrust all that profoundly. It isn’t what you want nowadays; good solid esteem is the only thing to build on.”
Tony spoke with an air of deep experience. Maradick, with the thought of his own failure in his mind, wondered whether, after all, that were not the right way of looking at it. It had not been his way, fifteen years before; he had been the true impetuous lover, and now he reaped his harvest. Oh! these considering and careful young men and girls of the new generation were learning their lesson, and yet, in spite of it all, marriage turned out as many failures as ever. But this remark of the boy’s had been little in agreement with the rest of him; he had been romantic, impetuous, and very, very young, and this serious and rather cynical doctrine of “good solid esteem” was out of keeping with the rest of him.
“I wonder if you mean that,” he said, looking sharply at Tony.
“Of course. I’ve thought a great deal about marriage, in our set especially. One sees fellows marrying every day, either because they’re told to, or because they’re told not to, and both ways are bad. Of course I’ve fancied I was in love once or twice, but it’s always passed off. Supposing I’d married one of those girls, what would have come of it? Disaster, naturally. So now I’m wiser.”
“Don’t you be too sure. It’s that wisdom that’s so dangerous. The Fates, or whatever they are, always choose the cocksure moment for upsetting the certainty. I shouldn’t wonder if you change your views before you’re much older. You’re not the sort of chap, if you’ll pardon my saying so, to do those things so philosophically. And then, there’s something in the air of this place——”