"I didn't mind. I dare say it was for my good."
"I'm sure I meant it so, uncle. And what are you going to do about it?"
"Well, I must get a new point of view."
"Yes?"
"I must change my ground altogether. I can't pretend any longer to be the contemporary of my lovers, or to have the least sympathy with their hopes and fears. If I were to be perfectly honest with them, I should tell them, perhaps, that disappointed love was the best thing that could happen to either of them, but, if they insisted on happiness, that a good broken engagement promised more of it than anything else I could think of."
"That is true," the girl sighed. "There are a great many unhappy marriages. Of course, people would say it was rather pessimistic, wouldn't they?"
"People will say anything. One mustn't mind them. But now I'll tell you what I've been thinking all the time we've been talking."
"Well? I knew you were not thinking of my nonsense!"
"It was very good nonsense, as nonsense goes, my dear. What I've been thinking is that I must still have the love interest in my books, and have it the main interest, but I must treat it from the vantage-ground of age; it must be something I look back upon, and a little down upon."
"I see what you mean," the girl dissentingly assented.