‘What I mean is this,’ said Atlee, with a firm voice, ‘that when a young girl has decided in her own mind that she has had enough of that social bondage of the daughter, and cannot marry the man she would like, she will marry the man that she can.’
‘And like him too,’ added Nina, with a strange, dubious sort of smile.
‘Yes, and like him too; for there is a curious feature in the woman’s nature that, without any falsehood or disloyalty, permits her to like different people in different ways, so that the quiet, gentle, almost impassive woman might, if differently mated, have been a being of fervid temper, headstrong and passionate. If it were not for this species of accommodation, marriage would be a worse thing than it is.’
‘I never suspected you of having made a study of the subject. Since when have you devoted your attention to the theme?’
‘I could answer in the words of Wilkes—since I have had the honour to know your Royal Highness; but perhaps you might be displeased with the flippancy.’
‘I should think that very probable,’ said she gravely.
‘Don’t look so serious. Remember that I did not commit myself after all.’
‘I thought it was possible to discuss this problem without a personality.’
‘Don’t you know that, let one deal in abstractions as long as he will, he is only skirmishing around special instances. It is out of what I glean from individuals I make up my generalities.’
‘Am I to understand by this that I have supplied you with the material of one of these reflections?’