“And I shall always be your friend, Edgar. You will get over this. Honestly now, isn’t it more than half, nearly all, your hatred of being baffled? If I were throwing myself at you, as I once was, you’d fly from me. Six months after you’ve married Evelyn, you’ll be thankful you did it. You’d not like a woman so full of caprices and surprises as I am. But I will not argue it.”
“I wonder if you’ll ever fall in love?” he said wistfully.
“I don’t know, I’m sure. Probably I expect too much in a man. Again, I might care only for a man who was out of reach.”
“You’re too romantic, Emily, for this life. You forget that you’re more or less human after all, and have to deal with human beings.”
“I wish I could forget that I’m human.” Emily sighed. Edgar looked at her suspiciously. “No,” she went on. “I’m not happy either, Edgar. Oh, it takes so much courage to stand up for one’s principles, one’s ideas.”
“But why do it? Why not accept what everybody says is so, and go along comfortably?”
“Why not? I often ask myself. But—well, I can’t.”
“Emmy, do you think it’s right for me to marry Evelyn, feeling as I do?”
“Do you?” She answered this difficult question in morals by turning it on him, because she wished to escape the dilemma. How could she decide for another? Why should she judge what was right for Edgar, what best for Evelyn?
“Well—not unless I told her. Not too much, you know. But enough to——”