"It wouldn't make any difference. I've come to see that. I love my little B, but she isn't Caroline. She might have fallen in love—she actually did—with a man who wasn't fit for her to marry. Caroline never would."
"Beatrix would never have fallen in love with Bradby."
"I know she wouldn't. She wouldn't have seen below the surface. Caroline does, and she finds something there that I confess I haven't been able to see hitherto. That's why I asked you at the beginning what you saw in him. Get rid of all the side issues. He's young; he isn't in a position to marry; he doesn't belong to our sort of people. What is he beneath all that? Or, if you like, what is he going to grow into?"
"He's A1 at his work. I've never denied that. He'll get a good job by and bye, and be worth it; but not for a good many years yet."
"That is one of the side issues. Caroline wouldn't love him because he was likely to get a good job. What is he in himself? Come now, James, you're a man of some perception, and he has lived with you for over a year."
"What is he in himself?" Worthing frowned, with the effort to direct his thoughts into the channels required of them. "You want me to give you excuses for accepting him," he said.
"Not excuses; reasons. I'll tell you how Caroline sees him. Her words struck me. She said he was big and simple and direct."
This was rather beyond Worthing. "He's a good fellow," he said. "He's not always thinking about himself; a nice fellow to live with. Whatever he does he does as well as he can do it. Is that what she means by being direct? He's simple enough, if that's a good quality. I'm not sure that it is. Fellows of our age can say we've hit upon the right sort of life and don't want anything beyond it, but I think a young fellow ought to have some ambition. I've never seen any in him. I doubt if he'd ever move to get himself on; he'd just do his work wherever he was. I don't know what she means by his being big. He's in his right place on the land."
"That's what she does mean, I think. He's so much in his right place, where most people aren't quite. And the land is big. He's in tune with it. I think that's how she expressed it. It's a bit beyond anything I could have got hold of myself, but it isn't beyond me to take in her view, believing in her as I do. She's big herself, you know, James. And she's simple and direct too. She has found herself, living here in the country. Eighteen months ago she wouldn't have fallen in love with Bradby, any more than B would. She's been getting away from the sort of life she was brought up to all the time. I've known that."
"But do you want that? It means she's getting away from you. I should have thought that was the last thing you'd have wanted."