Nothing so very dreadful, I suppose; but, under the circumstances, rash, to say the least—for Lilia admitted that her father was in total ignorance. “He would never look at Roderick again,” she assured me. “Don’t say ‘nonsense.’ I tell you he would not. I am never to marry!” “Why not?” I asked, perversely. She looked at me almost with indignation. “Marriage means misery,” she said, oracularly. “You mean, that Sir Roderick thinks it does,” I suggested. “He knows it,” she said, with emphasis, below her breath. I was silent with confusion. The next word, and Lilia might unbosom herself of secrets not her own—sacred to her father—not from any malice aforethought, but through the spontaneity to which she was bred by that very father. It behoved me to be cautious. “I really should tell Sir Roderick if I were you,” I hazarded. “It is only what he would reasonably expect. Cousins often marry. The contingency must have occurred to him.” At that moment I was inclined to think that such an issue might even have been planned by my self-sufficient host. “I thought you knew him!” she cried, recoiling from me a little. Nero got up and stood between us, looking suspiciously at me. I explained, apologetically, that although Sir Roderick and I had talked over the questions of humanity in the abstract, we had not arrived at the domestic problems. “The most important of all,” she said, somewhat pompously. “Granted,” I said. “And problems that can, unfortunately, only be solved by individual experience.” “Ah! you acknowledge that,” she said, with a sort of exultation. “You really uphold my father’s theory—that the risk is too great. He loves both Roderick and myself so well that he has preached the delights of celibacy to us ever since I can recollect.” “His preaching has had more effect upon you than upon your cousin, evidently,” I suggested. “I fear so,” she said, in a sorrowful tone which reproached me for my feeling this talk, so seriously in her estimation, almost absurd. “Poor, dear Roderick! I would rather do anything than ‘sneak,’ as he used to call it. But papa will be sure to notice something.” “Cannot you act—pretend?” I hazarded. She shook her head. “I never tried,” she said; “it has never been necessary.” “I daresay he will be equal to the occasion,” I said. “Your cousin is in the army, is he not? Oh! he is captain already? He has told you a good deal about life in camp, in barracks?” “Lots,” she said. (Doubtless lots, Captain Pym!) “Well, you know, officers can be silent when necessary, and know how to veil their opinions and feelings.” (I yearned to say, “know how to tell lies,” but checked myself.) “If I were you, I should be just the same to him to-night: I should ignore his unlucky suggestion, and behave exactly as if he had never made it.”