"I like people to be good-tempered, and not silly and jealous," I said.
"Jealousy is always silly, isn't it?" she said; "but when people love very much, with a love not very unselfish, perhaps—"
I made a sort of movement of impatience.
"He is a steady young fellow," she went on; "your mother tells me so. He has right principles and a warm heart. Kitty, don't you think, some day—?"
I only said, "No!" but I meant it from my very heart.
"Poor fellow!" she said. "Well, you are right not to make up your mind quickly to—anything. I did once, and I had reason to be sorry. O it was just the old story, dear. He thought he loved, and he won my love; and then he grew tired of me, and went off after somebody else. That so often happens."
"With some men, I suppose," I whispered.
"Yes, with some men; not with all. I could fancy that young Bowman would be constant, not changeable, if he once cared thoroughly for anybody, he would go on caring. Walter is different. He does not mean to treat anybody with unkindness, of course, but it seems as if he never could know his own mind."
What did make her say such things of her brother? I was growing angry.
"I have seen it in him again and again," she went on; "so I really have almost given up believing in his devotion to anybody. He is so easily caught, and he so easily breaks loose. I wish I could persuade him to go home now. It is not good for a young man to be staying in a strange place, with nothing whatever to do."