"Logic and love do not generally run in double harness, Miss Carmichael; but if you prefer the former, I am quite prepared to stick to it. Someone wants a wife, someone wants a home. It is a mere case of barter. What can be more natural, sensible----"
"And degrading."
"Pardon me, not always. I will take my own case if you will allow me. We have touched on it often before. Let us speak frankly now. I need money, not for myself alone; for the property. You have hinted a thousand times that I am a bad landlord; so I am. How can I help it without money?"
"You could be a better landlord than you are."
"If I chose to live on porridge and milk; but I don't choose, and I don't choose to sell. I prefer to stick to champagne and devilled bones, and give up another personal pleasure instead. And you say it is degrading."
"I said nothing of the sort. I spoke of myself. It would degrade me. I do not presume to speak of you."
"But you think it all the same."
"And if I do, what is that to you?" she cried suddenly, in hot anger. "I do condemn you, if you will have the truth. I think you will deliberately turn your back on the best part of life if you marry for mere comfort--and, what is more, that you will regret it."
"Possibly. I regret most things after a time. Let us wait and see whether you or I find the greatest happiness in life. Only we are not likely to agree even there, for we shall not see the world in the same light."
"Unless High Heaven vouchsafes us another Green Ray," she said coldly.