‘You told me you had accepted him already. I mean when he was here last.’
‘Yes, after a fashion. Don’t you know, child, that though lawyers maintain that a promise to do a certain thing, to make a lease or some contract, has in itself a binding significance, that in Cupid’s Court this is not law? and the man knew perfectly that all passed between us hitherto had no serious meaning, and bore no more real relation to marriage than an outpost encounter to a battle. For all that has taken place up to this, we might never fight—I mean marry—after all. The sages say that a girl should never believe a man means marriage till he talks money to her. Now, Kate, he talked money; and I believed him.’
‘I wish you would tell me of these things seriously, and without banter.’
‘So I do. Heaven knows I am in no jesting humour. It is in no outburst of high spirits or gaiety a girl confesses she is going to marry a man who has neither wealth nor station to offer, and whose fine connections are just fine enough to be ashamed of him.’
‘Are you in love with him?’
‘If you mean, do I imagine that this man’s affection and this man’s companionship are more to me than all the comforts and luxuries of life with another, I am not in love with him; but if you ask me, am I satisfied to risk my future with so much as I know of his temper, his tastes, his breeding, his habits, and his abilities, I incline to say Yes. Married life, Kate, is a sort of dietary, and one should remember that what he has to eat of every day ought not to be too appetising.’
‘I abhor your theory.’
‘Of course you do, child; and you fancy, naturally enough, that you would like ortolans every day for dinner; but my poor cold Greek temperament has none of the romantic warmth of your Celtic nature. I am very moderate in my hopes, very humble in all my ambitions.’
‘It is not thus I read you.’
‘Very probably. At all events, I have consented to be Mr. Walpole’s wife, and we are to be Minister Plenipotentiary and Special Envoy somewhere. It is not Bolivia, nor the Argentine Republic, but some other fabulous region, where the only fact is yellow fever.’