"
"Thanks, sir, I should be very glad to come; though your books, I'm afraid,
are the sort that would not have much to say to me."
"Come and see, come and see," Mr. Withers pressed him warmly. "A ripe
farewell should always hold the seeds of a future meeting."
"That is very kindly said," Thane responded quickly; "and if you don't
mind, I will plant one of those seeds right now."
"So do, so do," the old gentleman urged unsuspiciously.
"Your niece"--Thane began, but could see his way no further in that
direction without too much precipitancy. Then he backed down on a line of
argument,--"I need not point out the fact," etc.,--and abandoned that as
beset with too many pitfalls of logic, for one of his limited powers of
analysis. Fewest words and simplest would serve him best. "It is hardly
likely," then he said, "that your niece's present state of feeling will be
respected as long as it lasts; there will be others with feelings of their
own. Her loss will hardly protect her all her life from--she will have
suitors, of course! Nature is a brute, and most men, young men, are natural
in that respect,--in regard to women, I mean.
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