“Really! You think so?” And she looked up from her sewing with a little mutinous air.
“Certainly I think so. An unmarried woman is a target for scandal—unless she is very old and very plain—and even then she doesn’t always escape. You,—having a fair amount of good looks, should marry quickly.”
Her face brightened with sudden dimples of mirth.
“Perhaps I might,—if I could find any one rich enough to suit me,” she said.
“Rich enough!” The Philosopher was taken aback. It had never occurred to him that she, like himself, might have a fancy for the luxuries of life.
“Rich enough!” he echoed. “Surely you have no mercenary taint?—no hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt?”
She laughed, and made a little dab at him in the air with her needle.
“I’m not so sure!” she answered, gaily. “I like comfort and warmth, and flowers and pretty furniture—and frocks—and jewels—oh!—how shocked you look!”
“I look as I feel,” said the Philosopher, puffing slowly at his pipe. “I thought you altogether different,—of a finer mould than the merely frivolous woman—”
“Now! How can you say that?” she demanded. “When only the other day you told me that I had a new hat on, and ought to be perfectly happy in consequence!”