Poor Ransom
announced this fact to himself as if he had made a great discovery; but
in reality he had never been so "Boeotian" as at that moment. It proved
nothing of any importance, with regard to Miss Chancellor, to say that
she was morbid; any sufficient account of her would lie very much to the
rear of that. Why was she morbid, and why was her morbidness typical?
Ransom might have exulted if he had gone back far enough to explain that
mystery. The women he had hitherto known had been mainly of his own soft
clime, and it was not often they exhibited the tendency he detected (and
cursorily deplored) in Mrs. Luna's sister. That was the way he liked
them--not to think too much, not to feel any responsibility for the
government of the world, such as he was sure Miss Chancellor felt. If
they would only be private and passive, and have no feeling but for
that, and leave publicity to the sex of tougher hide! Ransom was pleased
with the vision of that remedy; it must be repeated that he was very
provincial.
These considerations were not present to him as definitely as I have
written them here; they were summed up in the vague compassion which his
cousin's figure excited in his mind, and which was yet accompanied with
a sensible reluctance to know her better, obvious as it was that with
such a face as that she must be remarkable.
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