"How so?"
"Oh, because," and the eyelids droop, for the lashes are long and black, though she would fain, look forever into the blue eyes above her. "Oh, because it is simply a woman's reason; give me your own."
"You are cruel, because to whom much is given, of him is much required."
"You flatter me; but let us look on the reverse side; I am a lonely man, I may say without kith or kin; I am almost sworn against wedded ties, but I love you all, have given much and require much."
And the easy sang-froid habitual to him gave place to a sadness of expression, a tired look, that ere now had made women weep. Mrs. Tompkins, impulsive to a degree, would fain have ordered everyone from the coach, taken his head to her breast, and bid him rest; a tremor is in her voice as she asks:
"Why will you not marry?" And for one moment she is willing to cut her heart out so he is happy; the next, ready to tear the heart from any woman who could make him so.
He sees by her tones the effect he is producing; he must again don his mask, and not excite her pity by reference to the sadness of his inner life, caused by his dead father's griefs; he had been foolish, but he had wished her in an indirect way to know that as no woman held his whole heart neither could she; and so, almost in his old easy tones, he says:
"Why not marry? I prefer you to frame some pretty imaginings to bore
you on our pleasure jaunt with my own; and here we are at our English
Frascati, Richmond the enchanting. Have you ever sunned yourself in
Italy, fair madame?"
"No, nor should I care to; the Italian is too lazy, too dreamy for me."
"Then you cannot enter into the spirit of Thompson's 'Castle of
Indolence?'"