Which of them is it?" asked Longueville of his friend, after they had
bidden good-night to the three ladies and to Captain Lovelock, who went
off to begin, as he said, the evening. They stood, when they had turned
away from the door of Mrs. Vivian's lodgings, in the little, rough-paved
German street.

"Which of them is what?" Gordon asked, staring at his companion.

"Oh, come," said Longueville, "you are not going to begin to play at
modesty at this hour! Did n't you write to me that you had been making
violent love?"

"Violent? No."

"The more shame to you! Has your love-making been feeble?"

His friend looked at him a moment rather soberly.

"I suppose you thought it a queer document--that letter I wrote you."

"I thought it characteristic," said Longueville smiling.

"Is n't that the same thing?"

"Not in the least. I have never thought you a man of oddities." Gordon
stood there looking at him with a serious eye, half appealing, half
questioning; but at these last words he glanced away. Even a very modest
man may wince a little at hearing himself denied the distinction of a
few variations from the common type. Longueville made this reflection,
and it struck him, also, that his companion was in a graver mood than he
had expected; though why, after all, should he have been in a state of
exhilaration? "Your letter was a very natural, interesting one," Bernard
added.

"Well, you see," said Gordon, facing his companion again, "I have been a
good deal preoccupied."

"Obviously, my dear fellow!"

"I want very much to marry."

"It 's a capital idea," said Longueville.

"I think almost as well of it," his friend declared, "as if I had
invented it. It has struck me for the first time."

These words were uttered with a mild simplicity which provoked
Longueville to violent laughter.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, "you have, after all, your little
oddities."

Singularly enough, however, Gordon Wright failed to appear flattered by
this concession.

"I did n't send for you to laugh at me," he said.

"Ah, but I have n't travelled three hundred miles to cry! Seriously,
solemnly, then, it is one of these young ladies that has put marriage
into your head?"

"Not at all. I had it in my head."

"Having a desire to marry, you proceeded to fall in love."

"I am not in love!" said Gordon Wright, with some energy.

"Ah, then, my dear fellow, why did you send for me?"

Wright looked at him an instant in silen