"What has Tante to do with it?" said Karen in a wondering voice. "Do you think I could marry without Tante's consent?"
"But you love me?"
"I do not understand you. Was it wrong of me to have said so before I had her consent? Was that not right? Not fair to you?"
"Since you love me you ought to be willing to marry me whether you have your guardian's consent or not." His voice strove to control its bitterness; but the day had darkened; all his happiness was blurred. He felt as if a great injury had been done him.
Karen continued to gaze at him in astonishment. "Would you have expected me to marry you without my mother's consent? She is in my mother's place."
"If you loved me I should certainly expect you to say that you would marry me whether your mother consented or not. You are of age. There is nothing against me. Those aren't English ideas at all, Karen."
"But I am not English," said Karen, "my guardian is not English. They are our ideas."
"You mean, you seriously mean, that, loving me, you would give me up if she told you to?"
"Yes," said Karen, now with the heaviness of their recognized division. "She would not refuse her consent unless it were right that I should give you up."
For some moments after this Gregory, in silence, looked down at the grass between them, clasping his knees; for he now sat upright. Then, controlling his anger to argumentative rationality, he said, while again wrenching away at the strongly rooted tufts: "If she did refuse, what reason could she give for refusing? As I say, there's absolutely nothing against me."