"I wish to goodness she would," says Branscombe; and then something in his own mind strikes him, and he leans back in his chair, and laughs aloud. There is, perhaps, more bitterness than mirth in his laugh; yet Miss Peyton hears only the mirth. "I hope she won't," she says, severely. "Nothing would cause me greater sorrow. Underneath her childish manner there lies a passionate amount of feeling that, once called into play, would be impossible to check. Amuse yourself elsewhere, Dorian, unless you mean to marry her." "Well, why shouldn't I marry her?" says Dorian. "I see no reason why you shouldn't. I only know you have no intention whatever of doing so." "If you keep on saying that over and over again, I dare say I _shall_ want to marry her," says Dorian. "There is nothing like opposition for that kind of thing; you go and tell a fellow he can't and sha'n't marry such-and-such a girl, and ten to one but he goes and does it directly." "Don't speak like that," says Clarissa, entreatingly: she is plainly unhappy. "Like what? What nonsense you have been talking all this time! Has it never occurred to you that though, no doubt, I am endowed with many qualities above the average, still I am not an 'Adonis,' or an 'Apollo,' or an 'Admirable Crichton,' or any thing of that sort, and that it is probable your Miss Broughton might be in my society from this till the day she dies without experiencing a pang, as far as I am concerned." "I don't know about 'Apollo' or 'Crichton,'" says Clarissa; "but let her alone. I want her to marry Mr. Hastings." "The curate?" says Dorian, for the second time to day. "Yes. Why should you be so amazed? He is very charming, and I think she likes him. He is very kind-hearted, and would make her happy; and she doesn't like teaching." "I don't believe she likes Hastings," says Dorian; yet his heart dies within him as he remembers how she defended him about his unlimited affection for the cup that "cheers but not inebriates." "I believe she does," says Clarissa. "Can't you do something for _me_, Clarissa?" says Dorian, with a rather strained laugh: "you are evidently bent on making the entire country happy, yet you ignore my case. Even when I set my heart upon a woman, you instantly marry her to the curate. I hate curates! They are so mild, so inoffensive, so abominably respectable. It is almost criminal of you to insist on handing over to one of them that gay little friend of yours with the yellow hair. She will die of Hastings, in a month. The very next time I have the good fortune to find her alone, I shall feel it my duty to warn her off him." "Does anybody ever take advice unless it falls in with their own wishes?" says Clarissa. "You may warn her as you will." "I sha'n't warn her at all," says Dorian.