“You shall, Dr. John. In some cases, you are a lavish, generous man: you are a worshipper ever ready with the votive offering should Père Silas ever convert _you_, you will give him abundance of alms for his poor, you will supply his altar with tapers, and the shrine of your favourite saint you will do your best to enrich: Ginevra, Dr. John—” “Hush!” said he, “don’t go on.” “Hush, I will _not_: and go on I _will_: Ginevra has had her hands filled from your hands more times than I can count. You have sought for her the costliest flowers; you have busied your brain in devising gifts the most delicate: such, one would have thought, as only a woman could have imagined; and in addition, Miss Fanshawe owns a set of ornaments, to purchase which your generosity must have verged on extravagance.” The modesty Ginevra herself had never evinced in this matter, now flushed all over the face of her admirer. “Nonsense!” he said, destructively snipping a skein of silk with my scissors. “I offered them to please myself: I felt she did me a favour in accepting them.” “She did more than a favour, Dr. John: she pledged her very honour that she would make you some return; and if she cannot pay you in affection, she ought to hand out a business-like equivalent, in the shape of some rouleaux of gold pieces.” “But you don’t understand her; she is far too disinterested to care for my gifts, and too simple-minded to know their value.” I laughed out: I had heard her adjudge to every jewel its price; and well I knew money-embarrassment, money-schemes; money’s worth, and endeavours to realise supplies, had, young as she was, furnished the most frequent, and the favourite stimulus of her thoughts for years. He pursued. “You should have seen her whenever I have laid on her lap some trifle; so cool, so unmoved: no eagerness to take, not even pleasure in contemplating. Just from amiable reluctance to grieve me, she would permit the bouquet to lie beside her, and perhaps consent to bear it away. Or, if I achieved the fastening of a bracelet on her ivory arm, however pretty the trinket might be (and I always carefully chose what seemed to _me_ pretty, and what of course was not valueless), the glitter never dazzled her bright eyes: she would hardly cast one look on my gift.” “Then, of course, not valuing it, she would unloose, and return it to you?” “No; for such a repulse she was too good-natured. She would consent to seem to forget what I had done, and retain the offering with lady-like quiet and easy oblivion. Under such circumstances, how can a man build on acceptance of his presents as a favourable symptom? For my part, were I to offer her all I have, and she to take it, such is her incapacity to be swayed by sordid considerations, I should not venture to believe the transaction advanced me one step.”