'I don't care a bit about the house now,' she answered.

'That's unkind.'

'I am thinking so much more of you of you and of myself. What does an
old house matter?'

'It's in very good repair,' said Captain Aylmer.

'You must not laugh at me,' she said; and in truth he was not laughing
at her. 'What I mean is that anything about a house is indifferent to
me now. It is as though I had got all that I want in the world. Is it
wrong of me to say so?'

'Oh, dear, no not wrong at all. How can it be wrong?' He did not tell
her that he also had got all he wanted; but his lack of enthusiasm in
this respect did not surprise her, or at first even vex her. She had
always known him to be a man careful of his words knowing their value
not speaking with hurried rashness as would her dear cousin Will. And
she doubted whether, after all, such hurried words mean as much as
words which are slower and calmer. After all his heat in love and
consequent disappointment, Will Belton had left her apparently well
contented. His fervour had been short-lived. She loved her cousin
dearly, and was so very glad that his fervour had been short-lived!

'When you asked me, I could but tell you the truth,' she said, smiling
at him.

The truth is very well, but he would have liked it better had the truth
come to him by slower degrees. When his aunt had told him to marry