'But some husbands treat their wives infamously; isn't no husband better than a bad husband?'
'I don't think so,' returned Mrs. Barton, and she glanced sharply at her daughter. 'I would sooner have the worst husband in the world than no husband.' Then settling herself like a pleader who has come to the incisive point of his argument, she continued: 'A woman is absolutely nothing without a husband; if she doesn't wish to pass for a failure she must get a husband, and upon this all her ideas should be set. I have always found that in this life we can only hope to succeed in what we undertake by keeping our minds fixed on it and never letting it out of sight until it is attained. Keep on trying, that is my advice to all young ladies: try to make yourselves agreeable, try to learn how to amuse men. Flatter them; that is the great secret; nineteen out of twenty will believe you, and the one that doesn't can't but think it delightful. Don't waste your time thinking of your books, your painting, your accomplishments; if you were Jane Austens, George Eliots, and Rosa Bonheurs, it would be of no use if you weren't married. A husband is better than talent, better even than fortune—without a husband a woman is nothing; with a husband she may rise to any height. Marriage gives a girl liberty, gives her admiration, gives her success; a woman's whole position depends upon it. And while we are on the subject it is as well to have one's say, and I speak for you both. You, Alice, are too much inclined to shrink into the background and waste your time with books; and you too, Olive, are behaving very foolishly, wasting your time and your complexion over a silly girlish flirtation.'
'There's no use talking about that. You have forbidden him the house; you can't do any more.'
'No, Olive, all I did was to insist that he should not come running after you until you had had time to consider the sacrifices you were making for him. I have no one's interest in the world, my dear girl, but your interests. Officers are all very well to laugh, talk, and flirt with—pour passer le temps—but I couldn't allow you to throw yourself away on the first man you meet. You will meet hundreds of others quite as handsome and as nice at the Castle.'
'I never could care for anyone else.'
'Wait until you have seen the others. Besides, what do you want? to be engaged to him? And I should like to know what is the use of my taking an engaged girl up to the Castle? No one would look at you.'
Olive raised her eyes in astonishment; she had not considered the question from this point of view, and the suggestion that, if engaged, she might as well stop at home, for no one would look at her, filled her with alarm.
'Whereas,' said Mrs. Barton, who saw that her words had the intended effect, 'if you were free you would be the season's beauty; nothing would be thought of but you; you would have lords, and earls, and marquesses dancing attendance on you, begging you to dance with them; you would be spoken of in the papers, described as the new beauty, and what not, and then if you were free—' Here Mrs. Barton heaved a deep sigh, and, letting her white hand fall over the arm of her chair, she seemed to abandon herself to the unsearchable decrees of destiny.
'Well, what then, mamma?' asked Olive excitedly. 'I am free, am I not?'
'Then you could outstrip the other girls, and go away with the great prize. They are all watching him; he will go to one of you for certain. I hear that Mrs. Scully—that great, fat, common creature, who sold bacon in a shop in Galway—is thinking of him for her daughter. Of course, if you like to see Violet become a marchioness, right under your nose, you can do so.'