"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.