Rowland gave a laugh. “‘Forever’—‘never!’ You handle large ideas. I have not taken a vow of celibacy.”
“Would n’t you like to marry?”
“I should like it immensely.”
To this she made no rejoinder: but presently she asked, “Why don’t you write a book?”
Rowland laughed, this time more freely. “A book! What book should I write?”
“A history; something about art or antiquities.”
“I have neither the learning nor the talent.”
She made no attempt to contradict him; she simply said she had supposed otherwise. “You ought, at any rate,” she continued in a moment, “to do something for yourself.”
“For myself? I should have supposed that if ever a man seemed to live for himself”—
“I don’t know how it seems,” she interrupted, “to careless observers. But we know—we know that you have lived—a great deal—for us.”