Talbot was silent, looking at her, and then instead of answering her question, said—
"Why don't you make him notice you more? why can't you appeal to him?"
"Appeal to him!" she repeated; "it's no use. Why, he is gold-plated—eyes, ears, touch, everything, all plated over; you can't reach him through it."
"Have men nothing like affection in them?" she said, after a minute. "Have they nothing between their mad bursts of passion and a cold incivility? What do they do with all the charming ways they have before they possess a woman? Stephen was so gentle, so nice, so interested, when he used to visit me down town; and now you see how rude and hateful he is very often. Why do they change? I have not changed. I am still as attentive, as eager to please him, more so, than when he came to my cabin. Oh," she added, after a minute, "I'm getting so tired of it all, I feel I'd like to throw it all up and go back to my own life and freedom. All the men are so civil and so nice and so devoted as long as a woman does nothing for them," she said simply, not fully realising perhaps the terrible ironical truth she was half-unconsciously uttering.
"I could love him immensely," she added, stretching out her arms; "oh, he could have such a love from me, if he wanted it; but as it is, I don't see much use in my staying with him. I feel I'd like to go back to my own life and forget I ever married him."
"Oh, you must not do that," said Talbot, startled out of his usual calm, and fixing his eyes on her; "pray don't think of such things."
"Do you think he would care?" she said, opening her eyes in her turn.
"I'm sure he would," Talbot answered, with so much emphasis and decision that the girl sat silent and impressed for some seconds.
"Why is he not more amiable then?" she asked.
"It's men's way," returned Talbot, not knowing exactly what to say, and accidentally hitting the truth completely.