I told him, with some mental misgivings, to be sure, that I had learned my lesson during the year that was past. No woman could make me lose my head again. At the same time I had not gotten over my admiration for the sex, and I saw no reason to do so.
"I'm beginning to believe you're not fooling," said Hume, after studying my countenance again. "Now, tell me precisely what your game is. Let us have the scheme, just as it lies in your mind and, if there's a redeeming feature about it, trust me as a true friend to say so."
We had at last reached the point I had hoped for, and I complied without hesitation.
"I am acting primarily on the advice--almost on the orders--of Dr. Chambers. He wants me to take a sea voyage. He advises me strongly not to go alone. Then Uncle Dugald hints every time I see him that I ought to recommence the genealogy as soon as I feel able. A good stenographer would make that task an easy one. The reason I purpose taking a lady instead of a man--but you will certainly laugh if I tell you."
My friend responded gravely that he would promise to do nothing of the sort.
"Well," I continued, "it is this: and you may laugh at me if you like. I have led a life as regards women that I now think worse than idiotic. I have followed one after another of them, from pillar to post, falling madly in love, troubling my mind, worrying over the inevitable separations, getting the blues, losing heart, all that sort of thing; then, beginning over again with a new charmer, and pursuing the inevitable round. I have never been intimately acquainted with a pure, honest girl of the better classes, except one, who, this morning, refused my offer of marriage. I have no feminine relations except a couple of old aunts. I need sadly to be educated by a woman who will not hold out temptation. I believe a few months in the society of such a woman, away from old associations, will make another man of me."
When I think of it now I wonder that Harvey, with his keen sense of the ludicrous, did not burst into a laugh, in spite of his promise. But he took my serious story with equal seriousness and bowed gravely.
"What is to keep you from falling in love with your secretary, when you and she are practically alone, miles and miles from all the people you both know?"