“No more about what?” sobbed Mabel. “Do you mean that you will go abroad?”
“Of course.”
“That means that you hate me.”
“How can you say such a thing?”
“You do! You do! If you didn’t, you wouldn’t refuse the first thing I ever asked you.”
“But the first thing happens to affect my whole future.”
“You don’t consider that it affects mine, too!” with sobs of increasing vehemence. “I shall be utterly miserable playing third fiddle to a lot of horrid old official women that think more of themselves than the Queen of England, of never being able to get away from the everlasting cackling of foreign languages, and of always being ill, for I—I—am never well abroad—”
“Oh? I first met you in Munich, and I never saw even an English girl with so beautiful a bloom.”
“But I’m never well unless I’m happy!” articulated the desperate Mabel. “And I hate, hate, hate the Continent. I adore England. I must, must live my dreams. I have dreamed of this for years. A dozen men could have given me castles, but I wanted you, and you ought to give me that much in return.”
“If you love me so much, it seems odd to me that you do not place my future before those old fairy tales of your childhood,” said the logical male to his mate.