her, but he
had n't promised to marry her. It was all very well not being in love
with Miss Bernardstone; but, as it happened, he had promised to marry
her, and in my country a gentleman was supposed to keep such promises.
If it was a question of keeping them only so long as was convenient,
where would any of us be? I assure you I became very eloquent and
moral,--yes, moral, I maintain the word, in spite of your perhaps
thinking (as you are very capable of doing) that I ought to have advised
him in just the opposite sense. It was not a question of love, but
of marriage, for he had never promised to love poor Joscelind. It was
useless his saying it was dreadful to marry without love; he knew that
he thought it, and the people he lived with thought it, nothing of the
kind. Half his friends had married on those terms. "Yes, and a pretty
sight their private life presented!" That might be, but it was the first
time I had ever heard him say it. A fortnight before he had been quite
ready to do like the others. I knew what I thought, and I suppose I
expressed it with some clearness, for my arguments made him still more
uncomfortable, unable as he was either to accept them or to act in
contempt of them. Why he should have cared so much for my opinion is
a mystery I can't elucidate; to understand my little story, you must
simply swallow it. That he did care is proved by the exasperation with
which he suddenly broke out, "Well, then, as I understand you, what you
recommend me is to marry Miss Bernardstone, and carry on an intrigue
with Lady Vandeleur!"

He knew perfectly that I recommended nothing of the sort, and he must
have been very angry to indulge in this _boutade_. He told me that other
people did n't think as I did--that every one was of the opinion that
between a woman he did n't love and a woman he had adored for years
it was a plain moral duty not to hesitate. "Don't hesitate then!" I
exclaimed; but I did n't get rid of him with this, for he returned to
the charge more than once (he came to me so often that I thought he must
neglect both his other alternatives), and let me know again that the
voice of society was quite against my view. You will doubtless be
surprised at such an intimation that he had taken "society" into his
confidence, and wonder whether he went about asking people whether they
thought he might back out. I can't tell you exactly, but I know that
for some weeks his dilemma was a great deal talked about