"Because you don't deserve it;" I answered with some spirit; and by this time he knew that I had some will of my own. "If you had said to me, about my darling Laura--'Tommy, you shall have her; and I trust to your own good feeling, not to leave a stone unturned, for the discomfiture of the Radicals'--you might have had me for your dog,--to sit up, or dance round the room, or jump over your handkerchief, at order. That would have been the wiser course for you to take." I spoke with some emotion; and to my mind my words appeared altogether unanswerable. But he looked at me steadily, and his face expressed no sense of contrition. Neither did his answer. "I considered all that; but I found it would be an entire mistake, so to trust you. Not from any doubt of your honour, my dear fellow, or desire to oblige me, after date. But simply because all your power would be gone. For a twelvemonth, after you have married Laura--supposing that such a thing ever comes to pass--there will be no possibility of stirring up any indignation in your system. She is so confoundedly sweet-tempered, that you (who have got too much of that already) doubling your stock--as married people do, at first--would regard the loss of India, or even a French invasion, with perfect equanimity; if they let you alone with your Laura. And without indignation, you have no wings now. I have taken the trouble to ascertain that point. And my settled conviction is, that after you are married, you will never fly again, until you have a good fight with Laura." "What a very low, and coarse way you have of putting things!" I exclaimed with--as our Poets say--a mixture of emotions. Rapture, at the thought of ever having Laura; rage, at the base idea of ever falling out with her; and astonishment at Sir Roland's foresight, and grasp of the matter, in all its bearings. "Why, you look upon me, entirely as a subject for experiments!"