Any other man I know would have stayed in Rome and attended strictly to his courtship and let his estates take care of themselves.

You are supposed to be violently in love and you certainly behave like it: yet you leave Rome and Vedia and shut yourself up among these damp cold hills and inspect and reinspect and make a final inspection, and delay for one last peep and linger for one final glance, where any other man would ignore the property and be with the widow." "I do not see anything extraordinary about it," I disclaimed.

"A man needs an income, a lover most of all." "Income!" he snorted.

"Isn't your income from your Bruttian estates ten times the gross return from the property ?" "More than ten times," I admitted.
"Why worry about it at all then ?" he demanded.

"Isn't your Bruttian income enough ?" "No income is enough," I declared, "if a man has a chance to get in more." "Of course," he beamed, "you do not see anything extraordinary in your petting this property.