sure your principle is the best--that perpetual denial to impulse, that
refusal to take what you can get in the moment, because of what you may
be called upon to pay hereafter. At any rate, it may not be the
luckiest nor the happiest. But still, in the case of a man who has many
equally strong wishes, it is difficult to say what he should do. In
your case the upshot of either resolution would have been the same--as
things are, you will get your book out and be discontented; in the
other case, you would have married Lucia and been discontented!"

"You may be as cynical as you please," I muttered, with my hands
pressed over my eyes. "I am not responsible for the complex nature of
the human brain, nor can I simplify it. I know what I am going to do
now. Having secured the work, I am going to gain Lucia too, if it is in
the power of any man--whether, as you put it, her virtue, or her
health, or her inclination, or the whole lot together, have broken
down!"

"And if you don't get her, you will get over it: we all do, Vic," he
said, with a smile.

"Very possibly," I assented.

It was not worth while to discuss a contingency I had determined to
prevent.

"A man's profession is his best friend," Dick went on, stretching
himself out on the couch. "That he can command; and for the
rest--purchasable pleasures--those he can command. These
affaires-de-coeur, which you can't command, are always more bother than
they are worth."

There was silence, then he added,--

"One good one, though, fairly early in life, is useful, like
vaccination. You are not so likely to fall in love again after it; just
as, after vaccination, you are not so likely to have smallpox. For
myself, I should prefer smallpox to being in love."

I merely laughed, without replying. In my present state I was not sure
that he was far wrong.

"I say," Dick remarked, after a pause; "you are looking most awfully
seedy. Hadn't you better turn in and try and get some sleep? One always
thinks one can't, but one generally does."

"Yes; I think I had better," I said, getting up. I turned one lamp out
and the other down.

"It's odd--I wonder what the ultimate, future event will be"--

"'Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere,'" answered Dick, with a laugh,
as he turned and settled himself on the couch.

"There are a couple of rugs," I said, depositing them on his feet.
"Draw them up if you're cold."

"All right. Thanks! Good-night!"

"Good night!"

I slippe