“I’ll tell you what he has: he has fine straight legs, and a smooth forehead, and a good-humoured eye, and white teeth. Was it possible to see such a catalogue of perfections, and not fall down, stricken to the very bone? But it was not that that did it all, Fanny. I could have stood against that, I think I could, at least. It was his title that killed me. I had never spoken to a lord before.”
But she is also obliged to acknowledge that she has done some injustice to her own romance and to the sincerity of Lord Lufton:[163]
“Well, it was not a dream. Here, standing here, on this very spot—on that flower of the carpet—he begged me a dozen times to be his wife. I wonder whether you and Mark would let me cut it out and keep it.”
No solution to her matrimonial problem being offered, she suggests one:[164]
“‘And what shall I do next?’ said Lucy, still speaking in a tone that was half tragic and half jeering.
“‘Do?’ said Mrs. Robarts.
“‘Yes, something must be done. If I were a man I could go to Switzerland, of course; or, as the case is a bad one, perhaps as far as Hungary. What is it that girls do? they don’t die now-a-days, I believe. * * * I have got a piece of sackcloth, and I mean to wear that, when I have made it up.’”
We are relieved to hear later that no such drastic action was necessary, as she became Lady Lufton and was able to be happy without overworking her sense of humor.
These instances may serve to indicate the general method and effect of so-called realism applied to satiric intent, so long as allowance is made for the unreal and distorted nature of all incomplete and isolated cases, butchered to make an analytic holiday.