t in the boat, when she looked at him in
vague, sociable silence, while she waited for a bite (she delighted in a
bite), she had an expression of diabolical shrewdness. When Ransom was
not scorching there beside her (he didn't mind the sun of
Massachusetts), he lounged about in the pastoral land which hung (at a
very moderate elevation) above the shore. He always had a book in his
pocket, and he lay under whispering trees and kicked his heels and made
up his mind on what side he should take Verena the next time. At the end
of a fortnight he had succeeded (so he believed, at least) far better
than he had hoped, in this sense, that the girl had now the air of
making much more light of her "gift." He was indeed quite appalled at
the facility with which she threw it over, gave up the idea that it was
useful and precious. That had been what he wanted her to do, and the
fact of the sacrifice (once she had fairly looked at it) costing her so
little only proved his contention, only made it clear that it was not
necessary to her happiness to spend half her life ranting (no matter how
prettily) in public. All the same he said to himself that, to make up
for the loss of whatever was sweet in the reputation of the thing, he
should have to be tremendously nice to her in all the coming years.
During the first week he was at Marmion she made of him an inquiry which
touched on this point.

"Well, if it's all a mere delusion, why should this facility have been
given me--why should I have been saddled with a superfluous talent? I
don't care much about it--I don't mind telling you that; but I confess I
should like to know what is to become of all that part of me, if I
retire into private life, and live, as you say, simply to be charming
for you. I shall be like a singer with a beautiful voice (you have told
me yourself my voice is beautiful) who has accepted some decree of never
raising a note. Isn't that a great waste, a great violation of nature?
Were not our talents given us to use, and have we any right to smother
them and deprive our fellow-creatures of such pleasure as they may
confer? In the arrangement you propose" (that was Verena's way of
speaking of the question of their marriage) "I don't see what provision
is made for the poor faithful, dismissed servant. It is all very well to
be charming to you, but there are people who have told me that once I
get on a platform I am charming to all the world. There is no harm in my
speakin