VOLUME I
10. CHAPTER X
(continued)
"I don't know anything about your natural charm. If you've got
any charm it's quite unnatural. It's wholly acquired--or at least
you've tried hard to acquire it, living over here. I don't say
you've succeeded. It's a charm that I don't appreciate, anyway.
Make yourself useful in some way, and then we'll talk about it."
"Well, now, tell me what I shall do," said Ralph.
"Go right home, to begin with."
"Yes, I see. And then?"
"Take right hold of something."
"Well, now, what sort of thing?"
"Anything you please, so long as you take hold. Some new idea,
some big work."
"Is it very difficult to take hold?" Ralph enquired.
"Not if you put your heart into it."
"Ah, my heart," said Ralph. "If it depends upon my heart--!"
"Haven't you got a heart?"
"I had one a few days ago, but I've lost it since."
"You're not serious," Miss Stackpole remarked; "that's what's the
matter with you." But for all this, in a day or two, she again
permitted him to fix her attention and on the later occasion
assigned a different cause to her mysterious perversity. "I know
what's the matter with you, Mr. Touchett," she said. "You think
you're too good to get married."
"I thought so till I knew you, Miss Stackpole," Ralph answered;
"and then I suddenly changed my mind."
"Oh pshaw!" Henrietta groaned.
"Then it seemed to me," said Ralph, "that I was not good enough."
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