"Have not you noticed it yourself?—do not you think that there is something odd about him? Does not he strike you as odd?"
"Odd?" repeats Burgoyne slowly, reflecting in how extremely commonplace a light both the virtues and vices of his fellow-traveller have always presented themselves to him; "it would never have occurred to me that Willy was odd; I cannot"—smiling—"encourage you in the idea that you have added one to the number of the world's eccentrics."
She sighs rather impatiently at his apparently intentional misunderstanding of her drift.
"'Children are avenues to misfortune,' as somebody said, and I think that, whoever he was, he was right. 'If Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as are those in the land, what good shall my life do to me?'"
"Why should you credit Jacob with any such intention?"
"I do not half like leaving him here by himself."
"By himself? You count me as no one then?"
"Oh yes, I do—I count you as a great deal; that is why I was so anxious to speak to you before I went; of course I do not expect you to take upon yourself the whole responsibility of him, but you might keep an eye upon him."
He shrugs his shoulders.
"As I have to keep the other eye upon myself, I am afraid that the effort would but make me squint."