‘Perhaps.’
‘You do not seem sure. I wish you would explain yourself, as you promised to do!’
‘Then you must not interrupt me at every word.’
‘Was I interrupting? I thought my questions might help you. Go on.’
‘I only mean to say that I never heard of a woman who wanted an explanation of her feelings when she was in love. And then I wondered whether your love was like mine, and as I am very sure, I supposed that if you felt differently you could not be so sure as I. That is all. Why are you so angry?’
‘You know very well why I am angry. That is only an excuse.’
‘If you are going to argue in that way—’ Greif shrugged his shoulders and said nothing more. Hilda seemed to be collecting her thoughts.
‘You evidently doubt me,’ she said at last, speaking quietly. ‘It is the first time. You have tried to defend your question, and you have not succeeded. All that you can tell me is that I am different from other women with whom you have talked. I know that as well as you do, though I have never seen them. It is quite possible that the difference may come from my education, or want of education. In that case, if you are going to be ashamed of me, when I am your wife, because I know less than the girls you have seen in towns and such places—why then, go away and marry one of them. She will feel as you expect her to feel, and you will be satisfied.’
‘Hilda!’
‘I mean what I say. But there may be something else. The difference may be there because I have not learned the same outward manners as the city people, because I do not laugh when they would laugh, cry when they would cry, act as they would act. I do not know half the things they like, or do, or say, but from what I have read I fancy that they are not at all simple, nor straightforward in their likings and dislikes, nor in their speech either. I do not even know whether I look like them, nor whether if I went to their places they would not take me for some strange wild animal. I make my own clothes. I have heard that they spend for one bit of dress as much as my mother and I spend in a whole year upon everything. I suppose they do, for your mother must wear what people wear in towns, and her things must cost a great deal. I think I should feel uncomfortable in them, but if we are married I will wear what you please—’