It makes him feel important and business-like, and blase, and
cynical; and whenever he has a touch of liver, or suffers from want of
exercise, he can mourn over his lost love, and be very happy in a tender,
twilight fashion.
Hannasyde's affair of the heart had been a Godsend to him. It was four years
old, and the girl had long since given up thinking of it.
She had married and had many cares of her own. In the beginning, she had told
Hannasyde that, "while she could never be anything more than a sister to him,
she would always take the deepest interest in his welfare." This startlingly
new and original remark gave Hannasyde something to think over for two years;
and his own vanity filled in the other twenty-four months. Hannasyde was quite
different from Phil Garron, but, none the less, had several points in common
with that far too lucky man.
He kept his unrequited attachment by him as men keep a well-smoked pipe--for
comfort's sake, and because it had grown dear in the using. It brought him
happily through the Simla season. Hannasyde was not lovely. There was a crudity
in his manners, and a roughness in the way in which he helped a lady on to her
horse, that did not attract the other sex to him. Even if he had cast about for
their favor, which he did not.
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