Then I stopped, and that stout old lady who got off at Madeira
bumped into me, and asked me to be good enough to make up my mind if I
were going backward or forward. Do you remember?"
"Yes," she answered in a low voice.
"Which things are an allegory," he continued. "I felt it so at the time.
Yes, I had half a mind to answer 'Backward' and give up my berth in
this ship. Then I looked at you again, and something inside of me said
'Forward.' So I came up the rest of the gangway and took off my hat
to you, a salutation I had no right to make, but which, I recall, you
acknowledged."
He paused, then continued: "As it began, so it has gone on. It is always
like that, is it not? The beginning is everything, the end must follow.
And now it has come out, as I was fully determined that it should not do
half an hour ago, when suddenly you developed eyes in the back of your
head, and--oh! dearest, I love you. No, please be quiet; I have not
done. I have told you what I am, and really there isn't much more to say
about me, for I have no particular vices except the worst of them all,
idleness, and not the slightest trace of any virtue that I can discover.
But I have a certain knowledge of the world acquired in a long course of
shooting parties, and as a man of the world I will venture to give you a
bit of advice.
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