De Craye saved it from an awkward length.  “I have written half an essay on Honeymoons, Miss Middleton.”

“Is that the same as a half-written essay, Colonel De Craye?”

“Just the same, with the difference that it’s a whole essay written all on one side.”

“On which side?”

“The bachelor’s.”

“Why does he trouble himself with such topics?”

“To warm himself for being left out in the cold.”

“Does he feel envy?”

“He has to confess it.”

“He has liberty.”

“A commodity he can’t tell the value of if there’s no one to buy.”

“Why should he wish to sell?”

“He’s bent on completing his essay.”

“To make the reading dull.”

“There we touch the key of the subject.  For what is to rescue the pair from a monotony multiplied by two?  And so a bachelor’s recommendation, when each has discovered the right sort of person to be dull with, pushes them from the churchdoor on a round of adventures containing a spice of peril, if ’tis to be had.  Let them be in danger of their lives the first or second day.  A bachelor’s loneliness is a private affair of his own; he hasn’t to look into a face to be ashamed of feeling it and inflicting it at the same time; ’tis his pillow; he can punch it an he pleases, and turn it over t’other side, if he’s for a mighty variation; there’s a dream in it.  But our poor couple are staring wide awake.  All their dreaming’s done.  They’ve emptied their bottle of elixir, or broken it; and she has a thirst for the use of the tongue, and he to yawn with a crony; and they may converse, they’re not aware of it, more than the desert that has drunk a shower.  So as soon as possible she’s away to the ladies, and he puts on his Club.  That’s what your bachelor sees and would like to spare them; and if he didn’t see something of the sort he’d be off with a noose round his neck, on his knees in the dew to the morning milkmaid.”

“The bachelor is happily warned and on his guard,” said Clara, diverted, as he wished her to be.  “Sketch me a few of the adventures you propose.”

“I have a friend who rowed his bride from the Houses of Parliament up the Thames to the Severn on into North Wales.  They shot some pretty weirs and rapids.”

“That was nice.”

“They had an infinity of adventures, and the best proof of the benefit they derived is, that they forgot everything about them except that the adventures occurred.”

“Those two must have returned bright enough to please you.”

“They returned, and shone like a wrecker’s beacon to the mariner.  You see, Miss Middleton, there was the landscape, and the exercise, and the occasional bit of danger.  I think it’s to be recommended.  The scene is always changing, and not too fast; and ’tis not too sublime, like big mountains, to tire them of their everlasting big Ohs.  There’s the difference between going