gatha's courage and capability, and believe
I shall be able to make her like me, and that the attachment so begun
may turn into as close a union as is either healthy or necessary between
two separate individuals. I may mistake her character, for I do not know
her as I know you, and have scarcely enough faith in her as yet to tell
her such things as I have told you. Still, there is a consoling dash of
romance in the transaction. Agatha has charm. Do you not think so?"

Gertrude's emotion was gone. She replied with cool scorn, "Very romantic
indeed. She is very fortunate."

Trefusis half laughed, half sighed with relief to find her so
self-possessed. "It sounds like--and indeed is--the selfish calculation
of a disilluded widower. You would not value such an offer, or envy the
recipient of it?"

"No," said Gertrude with quiet contempt.

"Yet there is some calculation behind every such offer. We marry to
satisfy our needs, and the more reasonable our needs are, the more
likely are we to get them satisfied. I see you are disgusted with me;
I feared as much. You are the sort of woman to admit no excuse for my
marriage except love--pure emotional love, blindfolding reason."

"I really do not concern myself--"

"Do not say so, Gertrude. I watch every step you take with anxiety; and
I do not believe you are indifferent to the worthiness of my conduct.
Believe me, love is an overrated passion; it would be irremediably
discredited but that young people, and the romancers who live upon their
follies, have a perpetual interest in rehabilitating it. No relation
involving divided duties and continual intercourse between two people
can subsist permanently on love alone. Yet love is not to be despised
when it comes from a fine nature. There is a man who loves you exactly
as you think I ought to love Agatha--and as I don't love her."

Gertrude's emotion stirred again, and her color rose. "You have no right
to say these things now," she said.

"Why may I not plead the cause of another? I speak of Erskine." Her
color vanished, and he continued, "I want you to marry him. When you are
married you will understand me better, and our friendship, shaken just
now, will be deepened; for I dare assure you, now that you can no longer
misunderstand me, that no living woman is dearer to me than you. So much
for the inevitable selfish reason. Erskine is a poor man, and in
his comfortable poverty--save the mark--lies your salvation from the
bas