"I am sure he has not said that. He has eyes to see and ears to hear. But, though I am neither ugly nor stupid, he needn't like me."
"Do you want him to like you?"
"Yes, I do. Oh yes; you may laugh; but if I did not think that I could be a good wife to him I would not take his hand even to become Duchess of Omnium."
"Do you mean that you love him, Mabel?"
"No; I do not mean that. But I would learn to love him. You do not believe that?" Here he smiled again and shook his head. "It is as I said before, because you are not a woman, and do not understand how women are trammelled. Do you think ill of me because I say this?"
"No, indeed."
"Do not think ill of me if you can help it, because you are almost the only friend that I can trust. I almost trust dear old Cass, but not quite. She is old-fashioned and I shock her. As for other women, there isn't one anywhere to whom I would say a word. Only think how a girl such as I am is placed; or indeed any girl. You, if you see a woman that you fancy, can pursue her, can win her and triumph, or lose her and gnaw your heart;—at any rate you can do something. You can tell her that you love her; can tell her so again and again even though she should scorn you. You can set yourself about the business you have taken in hand and can work hard at it. What can a girl do?"
"Girls work hard too sometimes."
"Of course they do;—but everybody feels that they are sinning against their sex. Of love, such as a man's is, a woman ought to know nothing. How can she love with passion when she should never give her love till it has been asked, and not then unless her friends tell her that the thing is suitable? Love such as that to me is out of the question. But, as it is fit that I should be married, I wish to be married well."
"And you will love him after a fashion?"