they'd seem
enough for you?'

'I know I'm a good-for-nothing beggar,' he answered, with a sudden air
of weary self-loathing and disdain. 'I know. I've got a way of taking
everything in deadly earnest for an hour or two. But,' with a sudden
swerve into the track of self-justification, 'if that makes you think
I'm fickle and weak-willed, you're all wrong, darling. There are some
fellows--I know plenty--who go through life like a lot of oysters. They
don't feel anything--they don't care about anything, or anybody. But,
bless your heart, my dear, they never get doubted.'

Bertha took this for a satiric dig at the absent Thistlewood, and spoke
up for him, needlessly, as it happened.

'Still waters run deep, Mr. Protheroe.'

'Some of 'em do,' responded Mr. Protheroe, with profoundest gloom, which
lightened suddenly into a smile as bright as sunshine. 'But some of 'em
don't run at all. And some of 'em are as shallow as any puddle you'll
find along the road, only they're so bemuddled you can't see to the
bottom of 'em. You can plumb 'em with your little finger, though, if you
don't mind soiling it.'

Now this innocent generalisation seemed gratuitously offensive to the
absent Thistlewood, and chilled Bertha greatly.

'That may be very true of some people,' she responded; 'but it isn't
true of all the quiet people in the world.. And I don't think, Mr.
Protheroe, that the people who make the greatest parade of their
feelings are the people who really have the most to speak of.'

'Why, that's true, too, of some people,' returned Protheroe; 'but there
are all sorts in the world, dear. Some say a lot and feel a lot Some
feel a lot and say nothing. Some say nothing and feel nothing. It may be
a fault with me--I don't know--but when I start to say a thing I want
to say all of it. But surely a feeling isn't less real because you don't
seem able to express it whatever words you choose.'

'Where the feeling's sacred the words are sacred,' Bertha objected.

'Tell me what it is you fear about me,' he besought her, leaning across
the table, and searching her face with his eyes. 'You don't believe
I should have a wandering mind if you said yes, and we should once be
married?'

She had laid the book upon the table, and now betook herself to
fingering the leaves again.

'I've no right to pick faults in you, or give you lessons, Mr.
Protheroe.'

'Oh yes, you have,' he answered. 'All the right in the world. If you'll
take in han