“Oh, I suppose so,”—sighing. The next moment she had pushed Millie aside, started up, and stared blankly at her friend. “Good gracious!”
“What is it?” cried Millie in alarm.
“I had forgotten! He has never asked me. Isn’t that necessary?”
“Perhaps words aren’t necessary?”
“Oh, they are—unfortunately—for now nothing will ever work him up to say them. I’m not sure that he could have done it with a living at his back, but now, not a word! Martyrdom, self-denial, all the discomforts of life! Perhaps if I were to have small-pox, or to tumble into the fire and be horribly scarred—otherwise!—Oh, Millie, when you fall in love, avoid excellence. The inconvenience of it!”
Millie murmured something consolatory, but Fanny broke in with a quick shake of the head.
“My dear, I know all you’re feeling, wondering what I find in him to like—attraction of opposites, isn’t there such an expression? There ought to be. I don’t expect you to sympathise, I only ask one thing.”
“Anything!” Millie kissed her.
“Don’t call him worthy. That’s what they’ll all do, I know, those of them who try to approve. ‘Fanny has chosen a very worthy man.’ To hear that, I really believe would make me hate him.”
She had the promise. Satisfied on this point, she began to talk about him, his simplicity, earnestness, unworldliness. “So unlike us all. And now, what he has just done, though it has driven me distracted, isn’t it splendid? Tell me, do you know any other man who would be so disinterested?”