"Nor I either; but one reads of them. I can fancy a man really caring for a girl down in Galway. Can you fancy a man caring for a girl?"
"I don't know," said Ada.
"For yourself, now?"
"I don't think anybody will ever care much for me."
"Oh, Ada, what a fib. It is all very pretty, your mock modestly, but it is so untrue. A man not love you! Why, I can fancy a man thinking that the gods could not allow him a greater grace than the privilege of taking you in his arms."
"Isn't anyone to take you in his arms, then?"
"No, no one. I am not a thing to be looked at in that light. I mean eventually to take to women's rights, and to make myself generally odious. Only I have promised to stick to papa, and I have got to do that first. You;—who will you stick to?"
"I don't know," said Ada.
"If I were to suggest Captain Yorke Clayton? If I were to suppose that he is the man who is to have the privilege?"
"Don't, Edith."