fectly well that whichever one I chose I’d regret all my life that I hadn’t married the other.”
“Didn’t you—love—either of them?” asked Anne, a little hesitatingly. It was not easy for her to speak to a stranger of the great mystery and transformation of life.
“Goodness, no. I couldn’t love anybody. It isn’t in me. Besides I wouldn’t want to. Being in love makes you a perfect slave, I think. And it would give a man such power to hurt you. I’d be afraid. No, no, Alec and Alonzo are two dear boys, and I like them both so much that I really don’t know which I like the better. That is the trouble. Alec is the best looking, of course, and I simply couldn’t marry a man who wasn’t handsome. He is good-tempered too, and has lovely, curly, black hair. He’s rather too perfect—I don’t believe I’d like a perfect husband—somebody I could never find fault with.”
“Then why not marry Alonzo?” asked Priscilla gravely.
“Think of marrying a name like Alonzo!” said Phil dolefully. “I don’t believe I could endure it. But he has a classic nose, and it would be a comfort to have a nose in the family that could be depended on. I can’t depend on mine. So far, it takes after the Gordon pattern, but I’m so afraid it will develop Byrne tendencies as I grow older. I examine it every day anxiously to make sure it’s still Gordon. Mother was a Byrne and has the Byrne nose in the Byrnest degree. Wait till you see it. I adore nice noses. Your nose
