The sentiment sounding unlikely, Maria Dolores raised doubtful eyes. They shone into John's; his drank their light; and something violent happened in his bosom. "Oh--?" she said. "Yes," said he, thinking what adorable little hands she had, as they lay loosely clasped in her lap, thinking how warm they would be, and fragrant; thinking too what fun it was, this playing with fire, how perilous and exciting, and how egotistical he must seem to her, and how nothing on earth should prevent him from continuing the play. "Yes," he said, "it's a circumstance to be thankful for, because, like Winthorpe himself, though for different reasons, I'm unable to contemplate marriage." His voice sank sorrowfully, and he made a sorrowful movement. "Oh--?" said Maria Dolores, her sympathy becoming more explicit. "Winthorpe's too beastly puritanical--and I'm too beastly poor," said he. "Oh," she murmured. Her eyes softened; her sympathy deepened to compassion. "She must certainly put me down as the most complacent egotist in two hemispheres, so to regale her with unsolicited information about myself," thought John; "but surely it would need six hemispheres to produce another pair of eyes as beautiful as hers."--"Yes," he said, "I should be 'looking up' if I asked even a beggar-maid to marry me." Maria Dolores' beautiful eyes became thoughtful as well as compassionate. "But men who are poor work and earn money," she said, on the tone that young women adopt when the spirit moves them to preach to young men. And when the spirit does move them to that, things may be looked upon as having advanced an appreciable distance, the ball may be looked upon as rolling. "So I've heard," said John, his head in the clouds. "It must be dull business." Maria Dolores dimly smiled. "Do _you_ do no work?" she asked. "I've never had time," said John. "I've been too busy enjoying life." "Oh," said Maria Dolores, with the intonation of reproach. "Yes," said he, "enjoying the Humour, the Romance, the Beauty of it,--and combine the three together, make a chord of 'em, you get the Divinity. Or, to take a lower plane, the world's a stage, and life's the drama. I could never leave off watching and listening long enough to do any work." "But do you not wish to play a part in the drama, to be one of the actors?" asked his gentle homilist. "Have you no ambition?" "Not an atom," he easily confessed. "The part of spectator seems to me by far the pleasantest. To sit in the stalls and watch the incredible jumble-show, the reason-defying topsy-turvydom of it, the gorgeous, squalid, tearful, and mirthful pageantry, the reckless inconsequences, the flagrant impossibilities; to watch the Devil ramping up and down like a hungry lion, and to hear the young-eyed cherubim choiring from the skies: what better entertainment could the heart of man desire?"