‘With regard to Marian, you mean?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘But Marian understands me perfectly. I have never for a moment tried to make her think that—well, to put it plainly, that I was in love with her. In all our conversations it has been my one object to afford her insight into my character, and to explain my position. She has no excuse whatever for misinterpreting me. And I feel assured that she has done nothing of the kind.’
‘Very well, if you feel satisfied with yourself—’
‘But come now, Dora; what’s all this about? You are Marian’s friend, and, of course, I don’t wish you to say a word about her.
But let me explain myself. I have occasionally walked part of the way home with Marian, when she and I have happened to go from here at the same time; now there was nothing whatever in our talk at such times that anyone mightn’t have listened to. We are both intellectual people, and we talk in an intellectual way. You seem to have rather old-fashioned ideas—provincial ideas. A girl like Marian Yule claims the new privileges of woman; she would resent it if you supposed that she couldn’t be friendly with a man without attributing “intentions” to him—to use the old word. We don’t live in Wattleborough, where liberty is rendered impossible by the cackling of gossips.’
‘No, but—’
‘Well?’
‘It seems to me rather strange, that’s all. We had better not talk about it any more.’
‘But I have only just begun to talk about it; I must try to make my position intelligible to you. Now, suppose—a quite impossible thing—that Marian inherited some twenty or thirty thousand pounds; I should forthwith ask her to be my wife.’