Reflections of this character are not much in Bob's way. Pensive musings upon the caducity of the human race are, generally, rather feminine than masculine. A woman dreams over the shortness of life, while a man crowds it with doings that make it, in effect, long. Brandon turns the conversation back into a more practical channel.
"Have you any friends that you have known longer than you have us, Essie?"
"None."
"Any to whom it would be less irksome to you to lie under an obligation, as you call it?"
"None."
"Any that you like better, in short?"
"None," she answers, with a little impatience, as if, in a way, ashamed of her own destitution. "Good or bad, I have no friends, none, and you know it."
He looks at her with a sort of shocked amazement. "Good God! what is to become of you, then?" he asks, bluntly.
"I don't know."
"How are you to live?"