"Oh, if you resort to epigrams, I can see that it's all over."

"All over. I'm so used to being alone that I shouldn't know what to do

with a wife." He puffed seriously.

Ah! the futility of our desires, of our castles, of our dreams! The

complacency with which we jog along in what we deem to be our own

particular groove! I recall a girl friend of my youth who was going to

be a celibate, a great reformer, and toward that end was studying for

the pulpit. She is now the mother of several children, the most

peaceful and unorative woman I know. You see, humanity goes whirring

over various side-tracks, thinking them to be the main line, till fate

puts its peculiar but happy hand to the switch. Scharfenstein had been

plugging away over rusty rails and grass-grown ties--till he came to

Barscheit.

"Hope is the wings of the heart," said I, when I thought the pause had

grown long enough. "You still hope?"

"In a way. If I recollect, you had an affair once,"--shrewdly.

I smoked on. I wasn't quite ready to speak.

"You were always on the hunt for ideals, too, as I remember; hope

you'll find her."

"Max, my boy, I am solemnly convinced that I have."

"Good Lord, you don't mean to tell me that you are _hooked_?" he cried.

"I see no reason why you should use that particular tone," I answered

stiffly.

"Oh, come now; tell me all about it. Who is she, and when's the

wedding?"

"I don't know when the wedding's going to be, but I'm mighty sure that

I have met the one girl. Max, there never was a girl like her. Witty

she is, and wise; as beautiful as a summer's dawn; merry and brave;

rides, drives, plays the 'cello, dances like a moon-shadow; and all

that,"--with a wave of the hand.

"You've got it bad. Remember how you used to write poetry at college?

Who is she, if I may ask?"

"The Honorable Betty Moore, at present the guest of her Highness, the

Princess Hildegarde,"--with pardonable pride.

Max whistled. "You're a lucky beggar. One by one we turn traitor to

our native land. A Britisher! I never should have believed it of you,

of the man whose class declamation was on the fiery subject of

patriotism. But is it all on one side?"

"I don't know, Max; sometimes I think so, and then I don't."

"How long have you known her?"

"Little more than a month."

"A month? Everything moves swiftly these days, except European railway

cars."

"There's a romance, Max, but another besides her is concerned, and I

can not tell you. Some day, when everything quiets down, I'll get you

into a corner with a bottle, and you will find it worth while."




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