第91章 PART THIRD(22)

"I don't see how you could talk to that girl so long,Basil,and make her laugh so.""Why,there seemed no one else to do it,till I thought of Kendricks.""Yes,but I kept thinking,Now he's pleasant to her because he thinks it's to his interest.If she had no relation to 'Every Other Week,'he wouldn't waste his time on her.""Isabel,"March complained,"I wish you wouldn't think of me in he,him,and his;I never personalize you in my thoughts:you remain always a vague unindividualized essence,not quite without form and void,but nounless and pronounless.I call that a much more beautiful mental attitude toward the object of one's affections.But if you must he and him and his me in your thoughts,I wish you'd have more kindly thoughts of me.""Do you deny that it's true,Basil?"

"Do you believe that it's true,Isabel?"

"No matter.But could you excuse it if it were?""Ah,I see you'd have been capable of it in my,place,and you're ashamed.""Yes,"sighed the wife,"I'm afraid that I should.But tell me that you wouldn't,Basil!""I can tell you that I wasn't.But I suppose that in a real exigency,I could truckle to the proprietary Dryfooses as well as you.""Oh no;you mustn't,dear!I'm a woman,and I'm dreadfully afraid.But you must always be a man,especially with that horrid old Mr.Dryfoos.

Promise me that you'll never yield the least point to him in a matter of right and wrong!""Not if he's right and I'm wrong?"

"Don't trifle,dear!You know what I mean.Will you promise?""I'll promise to submit the point to you,and let you do the yielding.

As for me,I shall be adamant.Nothing I like better.""They're dreadful,even that poor,good young fellow,who's so different from all the rest;he's awful,too,because you feel that he's a martyr to them.""And I never did like martyrs a great deal,"March interposed.

"I wonder how they came to be there,"Mrs.March pursued,unmindful of his joke.

"That is exactly what seemed to be puzzling Miss Mela about us.She asked,and I explained as well as I could;and then she told me that Miss Vance had come to call on them and invited them;and first they didn't know how they could come till they thought of making Conrad bring them.

But she didn't say why Miss Vance called on them.Mr.Dryfoos doesn't employ her on 'Every Other Week.'But I suppose she has her own vile little motive.""It can't be their money;it can't be!"sighed Mrs.March.