"He does you no harm, my dear."
"But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him encouragement."
"I used to have lovers coming to me year after year,—the same people,—whom I don't think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry with them."
"But you didn't have Mr. Spooner."
"Mr. Spooner didn't know me in those days, or there is no saying what might have happened." Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing the matter with her husband. "I always think that any man who is privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask. There are disparities of course which may make the privilege questionable,—disparities of age, rank, and means."
"And of tastes," said Adelaide.
"I don't know about that.—A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess, nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool by putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it the broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who habitually sits in his company."
"I don't agree with you at all. What would be said if the curate at Long Royston were to propose to one of the FitzHoward girls?"
"The Duchess would probably ask the Duke to make the young man a bishop out of hand, and the Duke would have to spend a morning in explaining to her the changes which have come over the making of bishops since she was young. There is no other rule that you can lay down, and I think that girls should understand that they have to fight their battles subject to that law. It's very easy to say, 'No.'"
"But a man won't take 'No.'"