Alicia Terrill was angry, and not without cause.
Women have no sense of men's humour, and I do not think the Duke was tactful.
He was a young man who took things for granted.
Had Alicia been an heiress, she might have entered into the spirit of the Duke's humour. She could have afforded the whim. But she was not rich. Money is a horrid thing, and especially horrid to the poor girl who marries the rich man, however sincere and whole hearted her love is for him, and his for her.
For there comes, and there must come, an unpleasant feeling of dependence, a sensation such as must have been experienced by the unfortunate negroes who lived in Uncle Tom's Cabin (and nowhere else), when the whip of the overseer cracked, that is particularly irksome to a girl of independent character.
The Duke, as I say, took much for granted. Money was as nothing to him, he did not count it as a serious factor in life.
People with money seldom do.
You may say, having in mind the incidence of the Duke's tempestuous wooing, that there was little solid foundation for a true and abiding companionship such as marriage implies; that the ground was already prepared for misunderstandings. Perhaps your judgment is correct: in offering my own opinion, in all modesty, I venture to differ, because I know the Duke intimately.
"If you really loved me," she went on, "you would realize that I was your first interest—you would be ready to sacrifice these wretched whims of yours. It isn't the money and it isn't that I am ashamed of the suburbs—I would live in the Brixton Road—but I want to be the first thing in your life——" She faltered and made an heroic attempt to appear calm.
The Duke was genuinely astonished at the outburst, at the defiance that trembled in her tone, at the proximity of tears.