"No—but—" a second time, followed by another pause. "No: of course. Only I don't see how one can help wondering. Evelyn is so unlike everybody else; so beautiful and clever. Oh, 'clever' isn't the word. She is much more than clever."
"Intellectual."
"Yes; that is more what I mean. She seems to have such a—I don't know what to call it! She takes everything in, and thinks everything over; and then it comes out quite different, and so fresh. I'm not explaining myself properly. My father says she is original. And General Villiers isn't the least original, or clever, or anything. He is only good."
"That is a very important 'only.'"
"Oh, but don't you understand? One ought to be good, but one ought not to be only good. It shouldn't be just mere commonplace goodness."
"It ought to have a distinct character of its own, in each individual," suggested Jem, not a little interested in the play of Jean's face.
"Yes; I suppose that is what I want to say. My father always talks of General Villiers as such a 'very good man;' and it sounds to me as if he said it because he had nothing else to say. But I don't think one loves people merely because they are good—does one? At least I don't. There are numbers of good people that I can't love at all. I suppose I like their goodness, but I don't love themselves, because there doesn't seem to be anything in them to love."
"Or if there is something, Jean does not see it."
Jean was silent for a minute, and her next words might have seemed disconnected with her last. They did not so seem to Jem. He had the clue, and he could supply the connecting link.
"Evelyn was only two or three years older than I am now when she married. Only just eighteen—and he was the same age that my father is now."