"Nigel and Fulvia! No!"
"Why not?—eh?" with a sound of disappointment. "Why should they?"
"Why should they like one another? Nothing more natural. Always together from childhood."
"That's the very thing! Intimacy doesn't end as a rule in a real attachment. People get to know each other too well. Half the marriages that take place never would take place if the husband and wife were better acquainted beforehand. A hazy uncertainty is more favourable to love-making."
"Nonsense!"
"It's sense, I am afraid. Intimacy is apt to do away with the poetical glamour."
"Poetical rubbish!" in a whisper of high disdain. "I beg your pardon, but really—! The fact is, his father wants this, and I want it. First time Browning and I have ever wished the same thing. Couldn't be anything more suitable from every point of view."
"Unless from Nigel's own. He will choose for himself, you may be sure? If you had said 'Nigel and Ethel!'"
"Ethel Elvey! No, no. That won't do. Good girl, and immense favourite of mine, but not a penny will come to her. No—no, that won't do at all."
"Nigel will hardly marry for money."