“You mean in response to your query about men of genius, and their use for wives?”
“Yes.”
“I am not a man of genius, Fifine. Perhaps that is it.”
“But I say you are.”
“Then, for love of me, you would rather remain my mistress, which is to say my imagination, than become my wife, at the risk of turning my imagination out of doors?”
“I should not do that,” she said. “But, whatever I were called, I should stay if you told me, and go if you told me.”
“And that is just what I say. The ‘stamp’ is immaterial any way; at its best a sort of social diploma, entitling one to legal protection in one’s daily practice of the virtues. Will you marry me, Fifine?”
“Yes, if you wish it, Felix.”
“And do not you wish it?”
“It is only that I am frightened to think of ‘the poor Billy tethered to his stake in the backyard.’”