I also have something to say to you.'

CHAPTER XXXI - MR BROUNE HAS MADE UP HIS MIND

'And now I have something to say to you.' Mr Broune as he thus spoke
to Lady Carbury rose up to his feet and then sat down again. There was
an air of perturbation about him which was very manifest to the lady,
and the cause and coming result of which she thought that she
understood. 'The susceptible old goose is going to do something highly
ridiculous and very disagreeable.' It was thus that she spoke to
herself of the scene that she saw was prepared for her, but she did
not foresee accurately the shape in which the susceptibility of the
'old goose' would declare itself. 'Lady Carbury,' said Mr Broune,
standing up a second time, 'we are neither of us so young as we used
to be.'

'No, indeed;--and therefore it is that we can afford to ourselves the
luxury of being friends. Nothing but age enables men and women to know
each other intimately.'

This speech was a great impediment to Mr Broune's progress. It was
evidently intended to imply that he at least had reached a time of
life at which any allusion to love would be absurd. And yet, as a
fact, he was nearer fifty than sixty, was young of his age, could walk
his four or five miles pleasantly, could ride his cob in the park with
as free an air as any man of forty, and could afterwards work through
four or five hours of the night with an easy steadiness which nothing
but sound health could produce. Mr Broune, thinking of himself and his
own circumstances, could see no reason why he should not be in love.
'I hope we know each other intimately at any rate,' he said somewhat
lamely.

'Oh, yes;--and it is for that reason that I have come to you for advice.
Had I been a young woman I should not have dared to ask you.'

'I don't see that. I don't quite understand that. But it has nothing
to do with my present purpose. When I said that we were neither of us
so young as we once were, I uttered what was a stupid platitude,--a
foolish truism.'

'I do not think so,' said Lady Carbury smiling.

'Or would have been, only that I intended something further.' Mr
Broune had got himself into a difficulty and hardly knew how to get
out of it. 'I was going on to say that I hoped we were not too old
to--love.'

Foolish old darling! What did he mean by making such an ass of
himself? This was worse even than the kiss, as being more troublesome
and less easily pushed on one side and forgotten