"Well, I wish it was." His reply upset my arguments; I found it very difficult to re-arrange them on that basis.
"So far as that goes, I can get on well enough," he proceeded as I looked at him sensibly; "I shall feel it for years, no doubt, but still--but still the blackness and the bitterness of it is this, that such a girl, such a girl as never before trod the face of the earth, or inhaled the light of the sun--" "Don't get mixed," I implored, but he regarded me with scorn--"should be sold, I say sold, like a lamb in the market, to an idiot, just because he has a title!"
"You will be sorry when you have offended me," I spoke with extraordinary self-control, taking a side glance at my own case; "for I don't come round in a hurry, I can tell you. But you really don't know what you are talking of. My father and mother have heard of no proposal, neither have I. And as for Grace herself, she despises that milksop as heartily as I do."
"George Cranleigh, I have not known you long; but this I can say without hesitation, and I should like to see any man deny it, you are the very noblest fellow that ever--"
"Trod the face of the earth, or inhaled the light of the sun. And why? Because I happen to agree with you. Ah, Jackson, allow me to improve the moment. Is there any human praise that does not flow from the like source, from the sense that the other fellow thinks as we do, and the subtle flattery of our own wisdom, and concurrence with our wishes."
"Shut up," he cried with a smile, which must have procured him much lucrative business in the City; "what has Farmer Jarge to do with moralising? But are you quite sure of what you said--that she despises him heartily?"
"Unless anybody runs him down, she never has a good word to say for him. He will be here upon some pretext or another; but you need have no fear. I see exactly how to treat the case--to praise him to the nines, and exalt him as the paragon of all manliness, and self-denial, and every tip-top element. And then to let her observe him closely, to see if he comes up to that mark--and behold she finds him a selfish little funk! That is the true policy with women, Jackson Stoneman."
The stock-broker looked at me, with puzzle in his eyes, which were ever so much keener than mine, and had a gift of creating a gable over them, like a pair of dormer-windows with the frames painted black.
