"I love your aunt dearly and have been very glad to be with her."
"I wish you would learn to love somebody else dearly."
"Perhaps I shall, some day,--somebody else; though I don't at all know who it may be."
"You knew whom I mean."
"I suppose I do."
"And why not love him? Isn't he a good fellow?"
"One can't love all the good fellows, Lord Scroope."
"You'll never find a better one than he is."
"Did he commission you to speak for him?"
"You know he didn't. You know that he would be the last man in the world to do so?"
"I was surprised."
"But I had a reason for speaking."
"No doubt."
"I don't suppose it will have any effect with you;--but it is something you ought to know. If any man of my age can be supposed to have made up his mind on such a matter, you may believe that I have made up my mind that I will--never marry."
"What nonsense, Lord Scroope."
"Well;--yes; perhaps it is. But I am so convinced of it myself that I shall ask my brother to come and live here--permanently,--as master of the place. As he would have to leave his regiment it would of course be necessary that his position here should be settled,--and it shall be settled."
"I most sincerely hope that you will always live here yourself."
"It won't suit me. Circumstances have made it impossible. If he will not do so, nor my aunt, the house must be shut up. I am most anxious that this should not be done. I shall implore him to remain here, and to be here exactly as I should have been,--had things with me not have been so very unfortunate. He will at any rate have a house to offer you, if--"
"Lord Scroope!"
"I know what you are going to say, Sophie."
"I don't know that I am as yet disposed to marry for the sake of a house to shelter me."
"Of course you would say that; but still I think that I have been right to tell you. I am sure you will believe my assurance that Jack knows nothing of all this."
That same evening he said nearly the same thing to his brother, though in doing so he made no special allusion to Sophie Mellerby. "I know that there is a great deal that a fellow should do, living in such a house as this, but I am not the man to do it. It's a very good kind of life, if you happen to be up to it. I am not, but you are."