This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was silenced.
He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate: thinking it urgent to say something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which was behind him.
"No, no;" he responded shortly and somewhat testily.
"Well," I reflected; "if you won't talk, you may be still: I'll let you alone now and return to my book."
So I snuffed the candle, and resumed the perusal of Marmion. He soon stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements: he only took out a morocco pocketbook, thence produced a letter which he read in silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in my impatience, consent to be dumb: he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk I would.
"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?"
