The painting of this picture was as illusive as Evelyn herself, the
treatment of the reddish hair and the grey background.
And Harding listened, saying, "So this is the end."
"You think she will marry me?"
"Everything in nature is unexpected, that is all I can tell you. Art
is logic, Nature incoherency."
"Well, let us hope that Nature will be a little more coherent
to-morrow than she was last night, and that Evelyn will do the right
thing. Women generally marry when it is pressed upon them
sufficiently, don't you think so, Harding?"
"I hope it will be so, since you desire it."
"And you will be my best man, won't you?"
"I shall be only too pleased. Now, if you wait for me while I change
my boots we'll go out together." And the two men crossed the Green
Park talking of the great moral laxity of the time they lived in;
whereas in the eighteenth century men were even accused of boasting
of their successes, now the conditions were reversed, men never
admitting themselves to be anything else but virtuous; women, on the
contrary, publishing their _liaisons_, and taking little pleasure in
them until they were known to everybody.
"_Liaisons_ have become as official as marriages.
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