"'Reward her, lord of the creation-reward her!'" ejaculated she, with a curled lip.
"'And be repaid a thousandfold.'
"'If she willed it, monseigneur.'
"'And she should will it.'
"'You have stipulated for any temper Fate wills. Compulsion is flint and a blow to the metal of some souls.'
"'And love the spark it elicits.'
"'Who cares for the love that is but a spark-seen, flown upward, and gone?'
"'I must find my orphan girl. Tell me how, Miss Keeldar.'
"'Advertise; and be sure you add, when you describe the qualifications, she must be a good plain cook.'
541"'I must find her; and when I do find her I shall marry her.'
"'Not you!' and her voice took a sudden accent of peculiar scorn.
"I liked this. I had roused her from the pensive mood in which I had first found her. I would stir her further.
"'Why doubt it?'
"'You marry!'
"'Yes, of course; nothing more evident than that I can and shall.'
"'The contrary is evident, Mr. Moore.'
"She charmed me in this mood-waxing disdainful, half insulting; pride, temper, derision, blent in her large fine eye, that had just now the look of a merlin's.
"'Favour me with your reasons for such an opinion, Miss Keeldar.'
"'How will you manage to marry, I wonder?'
"'I shall manage it with ease and speed when I find the proper person.'
"'Accept celibacy!' (and she made a gesture with her hand as if she gave me something) 'take it as your doom!'
"'No; you cannot give what I already have. Celibacy has been mine for thirty years. If you wish to offer me a gift, a parting present, a keepsake, you must change the boon.'
"'Take worse, then!'
"'How-what?'
"I now felt, and looked, and spoke eagerly. I was unwise to quit my sheet-anchor of calm even for an instant; it deprived me of an advantage and transferred it to her. The little spark of temper dissolved in sarcasm, and eddied over her countenance in the ripples of a mocking smile.
"'Take a wife that has paid you court to save your modesty, and thrust herself upon you to spare your scruples.'
"'Only show me where.'
"'Any stout widow that has had a few husbands already, and can manage these things.'
"'She must not be rich, then. Oh these riches!'
"'Never would you have gathered the produce of the gold-bearing garden. You have not courage to confront the sleepless dragon; you have not craft to borrow the aid of Atlas.'
"'You look hot and haughty.'
542"'And you far haughtier. Yours is the monstrous pride which counterfeits humility.'
"'I am a dependant; I know my place.'
"'I am a woman; I know mine.'
"'I am poor; I must be proud.'
"'I have received ordinances, and own obligations stringent as yours.'
"We had reached a critical point now, and we halted and looked at each other. She would not give in, I felt. Beyond this I neither felt nor saw. A few moments yet were mine. The end was coming-I heard its rush-but not come. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse urged I would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in a hurry in my whole life. Hasty people drink the nectar of existence scalding hot; I taste it cool as dew. I proceeded: 'Apparently, Miss Keeldar, you are as little likely to marry as myself. I know you have refused three-nay, four-advantageous offers, and, I believe, a fifth. Have you rejected Sir Philip Nunnely?'
"I put this question suddenly and promptly.
"'Did you think I should take him?'
"'I thought you might.'
"'On what grounds, may I ask?'
"'Conformity of rank, age, pleasing contrast of temper-for he is mild and amiable-harmony of intellectual tastes.'
"'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces. "Conformity of rank." He is quite above me. Compare my grange with his palace, if you please. I am disdained by his kith and kin. "Suitability of age." We were born in the same year; consequently he is still a boy, while I am a woman-ten years his senior to all intents and purposes. "Contrast of temper." Mild and amiable, is he; I-what? Tell me.'
"'Sister of the spotted, bright, quick, fiery leopard.'
"'And you would mate me with a kid-the millennium being yet millions of centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an archangel high in the seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend? Unjust barbarian! "Harmony of intellectual tastes." He is fond of poetry, and I hate it--'
"'Do you? That is news.'
"'I absolutely shudder at the sight of metre or at the sound of rhyme whenever I am at the priory or Sir Philip543 at Fieldhead. Harmony, indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets or string stanzas fragile as fragments of glass? and when did I betray a belief that those penny-beads were genuine brilliants?'
"'You might have the satisfaction of leading him to a higher standard, of improving his tastes.'
"'Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing! Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I suppose you think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.'
"'God knows it is needed!'