Clement Yule watched himself smoke a minute. "Doing justice to natural desires is just what, of late, I've tried to make a study of. But I confess I don't quite grasp the deep attraction you appear to discover in so large a surrender of your interests."
"My surrenders are my own affair," Mr. Prodmore rang out, "and as for my interests, as I never, on principle, give anything for nothing, I dare say I may be trusted to know them when I see them. You come high--I don't for a moment deny it; but when I look at you, in this pleasant, intimate way, my dear boy--if you'll allow me so to describe things--I recognise one of those cases, unmistakeable when really met, in which one must put down one's money. There's not an article in the whole shop, if you don't mind the comparison, that strikes me as better value. I intend you shall be, Captain," Mr. Prodmore wound up in a frank, bold burst, "the true comfort of my life!"
The young man was as hushed for a little as if an organ-tone were still in the air. "May I inquire," he at last returned, "if Miss Prodmore's ideas of comfort are as well defined--and in her case, I may add, as touchingly modest--as her father's? Is she a responsible party of this ingenious arrangement?"
Mr. Prodmore rendered homage--his appreciation was marked--to the elevated character of his young friend's scruple. "Miss Prodmore, Captain Yule, may be perhaps best described as a large smooth sheet of blank, though gilt-edged, paper. No image of any tie but the true and perfect filial has yet, I can answer for it, formed itself on the considerable expanse. But for that image to be projected----"
"I've only, in person, to appear?" Yule asked with an embarrassment that he tried to laugh off.
"And, naturally, in person," Mr. Prodmore intelligently assented, "do yourself, as well as the young lady, justice. Do you remember what you said when I first, in London, laid the matter before you?"
Clement Yule did remember, but his amusement increased. "I think I said it struck me I should first take a look at--what do you call it?--the _corpus delicti_."
"You should first see for yourself what you had really come into? I was not only eager for that," said Mr. Prodmore, "but I'm willing to go further: I'm quite ready to hear you say that you think you should also first see the young lady."