As she had not read very widely, she supposed that she had discovered this religion for herself; she was not aware that everybody else had passed that way--it being the first immature moult in young people after rejecting dogma.
And the ripened fruit of all this philosophy she helpfully dispensed for Siward's benefit as bearing directly on his case.
Had he not been immersed in the unexpected proposition of her impending matrimony, he might have been impressed, for the spell of her beauty counted something, and besides, he had recently formulated for himself a code of ethics, tinctured with Omar, and slightly resembling her own discoveries in that dog-eared science.
So it was, when she was most eloquent, most earnestly inspired--nay in the very middle of a plea for sweetness and light and simple living, that his reasonings found voice in the material comment: "I never imagined you were engaged!" "Is that what you have been thinking about ?" she asked, innocently astonished.
"Yes.

Why not?
I never for one instant supposed--" "But, Mr.Siward, why should you have concerned yourself with supposing anything?
Why indulge in any speculation of that sort about me ?" "I don't know, but I didn't," he said.
"Of course you didn't; you'd known me for about three hours--there on the cliff--" "But--Quarrier--!" Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen--flickering, not yet settled.

He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the woman destined to be Quarrier's wife.

He had talked too much anyway.
Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue.

He had made a plain ass of himself--that was all,--a garrulous ass.