"But Trevelyan Morehouse!"
Hermia paused and examined the roses in the silver vase with a quizzical air.
"If I were not so rich, I should probably love Trevvy madly. But, you see, then Trevvy wouldn't love me. He couldn't afford to. He's ruining himself with roses as it is. And, curiously enough, I have a notion when I marry, to love—and be loved for myself alone. I'm not in love with Trevvy or any one else—or likely to be. The man I marry, Auntie, isn't doing what Trevvy and Crosby and Reggie Armistead are doing. He's different somehow—different from any man I've ever met."
"How, child?"
"I don't know," she mused, with a smile. "Only he isn't like Trevvy
Morehouse."
"But Mr. Morehouse is a very promising young man—"
"The person I marry won't be a promising young man. Promising young men continually remind me of my own deficiencies. Imagine domesticating a critic like that, marrying a mirror for one's foibles and being able to see nothing else. No, thanks."
"Whom will you marry then?" sighed Mrs. Westfield resignedly.
Hermia Challoner caught her by the arm. "Oh, I don't know—only he isn't the kind of man who'd send me roses. I think he's something between a pilgrim and a vagabond, a knight-errant from somewhere between Heaven and the true Bohemia, a despiser of shams and vanities, a man so much bigger than I am that he can make me what he is—in spite of himself."
"Hermia! A Bohemian! Such a person will hardly be found—"