to
the inn. "Have you proposed and been accepted?"

"Not exactly," said the other, smiling, "but I have had a charming
evening; one of those fleeting moments of that 'vie de famille' Balzac
tells us are worth all our wild and youthful excesses."

"Yes!" replied Barnard, scoffingly; "domesticity would seem to be your
forte. Heaven help your wife, say I, if you ever have one."

"You don't seem to be aware how you disparage conjugal life, my good
friend, when you speak of it as a thing in which men of _your_ stamp are
the ornaments. It would be a sorry institution if its best requirements
were a dreary temperament and a disposition that mistakes moodiness for
morality."

"Good-night; I have had enough," said the other, and left the room.

"What a pity to leave such a glorious spot on such a morning," said
Calvert, as he stood waiting while the post-horses were being harnessed.
"If we had but been good boys, as we might have been--that is, if _you_
had not fallen into matrimony, and _I_ into a quarrel--we should have
such a day's fishing here! Yonder, where you see the lemon-trees hanging
over the rock, in the pool underneath there are some twelve and fourteen
'pounders,' as strong as a good-size pike; and then we'd have grilled
them under the chestnut-trees, and talked away, as we've done scores of
times, of the great figure we were to make--I don't know when or how,
but some time and in some wise--in the world; astonishing all our
relations, and putting to utter shame and confusion that private tutor
at Dorking who would persist in auguring the very worst of us."

"Is that the bill that you are tearing up? Let me see it What does he
charge for that Grignolino wine and those bad cigars?" broke in Barnard.

"What do I know or care?" said Calvert, with a saucy laugh. "If you
possessed a schoolboy's money-box with a slit in it to hold your
savings, there would be some sense in looking after the five-franc
pieces you could rescue from a cheating landlord, and add to your store;
but when you know in your heart that you are never the richer nor the
better of the small economies that are only realised at the risk of an
apoplexy and some very profane expressions, my notion is, never mind
them--never fret about them."

"You talk like a millionaire," said the other contemptuously.

"It is all the resemblance that exists between us, Bob; not, however,
that I believe Baron Rothschild himself could moralise over the
insuffic