Having heard me attentively till I had finished, Isaacs relaxed his hold
on his knee and threw himself back on the cushions, as if to entrench
himself for a better fight. I had made an impression on him, but he was
not the man to own it easily. Presumably to gain time, he called for
hookahs and sherbet, and though the servants moved noiselessly in
preparing them, their presence was an interruption.

When we were settled again he had taken a nearly upright position on the
couch, and as he pulled at the long tube his face assumed that stolid
look of Oriental indifference which is the most discouraging shower-bath
to the persuasive powers. I had really no interest in converting him to
my own point of view about women. Honestly, was it my own point of view
at all? Would anything under heaven induce me, Paul Griggs, rich, or
poor, or comfortably off, to marry any one--Miss Westonhaugh, for
instance? Probably not. But then my preference for single blessedness
did not prevent me from believing that women have souls. That morning
the question of the marriage of the whole universe had been a matter of
the utmost indifference, and now I, a confirmed and hopelessly contented
bachelor, was trying to convince a man with three wives that matrimony
was a most excellent thing in its way, and that the pleasure of the
honeymoon was but the faint introduction to the bliss of the silver
wedding. It certainly must be Isaacs' own doing. He had launched on a
voyage of discovery and had taken me in tow. I had a strong suspicion
that he wanted to be convinced, and was playing indifference to soothe
his conscience.

"Well," said I at last, "have you any fault to find with my reasoning or
my simile?"

"With your simile--none. It is faultlessly perfect. You have not mixed