Mr. Rolfe rose and walked up to Mary Wells.
“What is the maddest thing your master has ever said?”
Mary Wells, instead of replying, looked at her mistress.
The writer instantly put his great body between them. “Come, none of that,” said he. “I don't want a falsehood—I want the truth.”
“La, sir, I don't know. My master he is not mad, I'm sure. The queerest thing he ever said was—he did say at one time 'twas writ on his face as he had no children.”
“Ah! And that is why he would not go abroad, perhaps.”
“That was one reason, sir, I do suppose.” Mr. Rolfe put his hands behind his back and walked thoughtfully and rather disconsolately back to his seat.
“Humph!” said he. Then, after a pause, “Well, well; I know the worst now; that is one comfort. Lady Bassett, you really must be candid with me. Consider: good advice is like a tight glove; it fits the circumstances, and it does not fit other circumstances. No man advises so badly on a false and partial statement as I do, for the very reason that my advice is a close fit. Even now I can't understand Sir Charles's despair of having children of his own.”
The writer then turned his looks on the two women, with an entire absence of expression; the sense of his eyes was turned inward, though the orbs were directed toward his visitors.
With this lack-luster gaze, and in the tone of thoughtful soliloquy, he said, “Has Sir Charles Bassett no eyes? and are there women so furtive, so secret, or so bashful, they do not tell their husbands?”