She made a little face, which of course he could not see, and answered quickly:
“You generally are thinking of something. You generally are thinking of—Eva, except when you are asleep, and then you are dreaming of her.”
Ernest coloured up.
“Yes,” he said, “it is true; she is often more or less in my mind. It is my misfortune, Doll, not my fault. You see, I do not do things by halves.”
Dorothy bit her lip.
“She should be vastly flattered, I am sure. Few women can boast of having inspired such affection in a man. I suppose it is because she treated you so badly. Dogs love the hand that whips them. You are a curious character, Ernest. Not many men would give so much to one who has returned so little.”
“So much the better for them. If I had a son, I think that I should teach him to make love to all women, and to use their affection as a means of amusement and self-advancement, but to fall in love with none.”
“That is one of your bitter remarks, for which I suppose we must thank Eva. You are always making them now. Let me tell you that there are good women in the world; yes, and honest, faithful women, who, when they have given their heart, are true to their choice, and would not do it violence to be made Queen of England. But you men do not go the right way to find them. You think of nothing but beauty, and never take the trouble to learn the hearts of the sweet girls who grow like daisies in the grass all round you, but who do not happen to have great melting eyes or a splendid figure. You tread them underfoot, and if they were not so humble they would be crushed, as you rush off and try to pick the rose; and then you prick your fingers and cry out, and tell all the daisies how shamefully the rose has treated you.”
Ernest laughed, and Dorothy went on:
“Yes, it is an unjust world. Let a woman but be beautiful and everything is at her feet, for you men are despicable creatures, and care for little except what is pleasant to the senses. On the other hand, let her be plain, or only ordinary-looking—for the fate of most of us is just to escape being ugly—and you pay as much regard to her as you do to the chairs you sit on. And yet, strange as it may seem to you, probably she has her feelings, and her capacities for high affection, and her imaginative power, all working vigorously behind her plain little face. Probably, too, she is better than your beauty. Nature does not give everything. When she endows a woman with perfect loveliness, she robs her either of her heart or her brains. But you men don’t see that, because you won’t look; so in course of time all the fine possibilities in Miss Plainface wither up, and she becomes a disappointed old maid, while my Lady Beauty pursues her career of selfishness and mischief-making, till at last she withers up too, that’s one comfort. We all end in bones, you know, and there isn’t much difference between us then.”