"Then I shall prefer to leave your party."
There were some moments of silence.
"I am really very sorry to find myself in this dilemma," said Sir
Richmond with a note of genuine regret in his voice.
"It is not a dilemma," said Dr. Martineau, with a corresponding loss of
asperity. "I grant you we discover we differ upon a question of taste
and convenience. But before I suggested this trip, I had intended to
spend a little time with my old friend Sir Kenelm Latter at Bournemouth.
Nothing simpler than to go to him now...."
"I shall be sorry all the same."
"I could have wished," said the doctor, "that these ladies had happened
a little later...."
The matter was settled. Nothing more of a practical nature remained to
be said. But neither gentleman wished to break off with a harsh and bare
decision.
"When the New Age is here," said Sir Richmond, "then, surely, a
friendship between a man and a woman will not be subjected to the--the
inconveniences your present code would set about it? They would travel
about together as they chose?"
"The fundamental principle of the new age," said the doctor, "will be
Honi soit qui mal y pense. In these matters. With perhaps Fay ce
que vouldras as its next injunction. So long as other lives are not
affected.
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