“But it would be folly for me to marry now, when I have no position to offer a wife.”
“And your future, of which you have just spoken with so much assurance, have you no faith in that?”
“An absolute faith—as firm to-day as when I first began the battle of life, only brighter. However, as others have not the same reasons that I have to hope and believe what I hope and believe, it is quite natural that they should feel doubts of my future. You felt it yourself instantly in not finding it a good guarantee for the small loan of three thousand francs.”
“A loan and marriage are not the same thing. A loan relieves you temporarily, and leaves you in a state to contract several others successively, which, you must acknowledge, weakens the guarantee that you offer. While a marriage instantly opens to you the road that your ambition wishes to travel.”
“I have never thought of marriage.”
“If you should think of it?”
“There must be a woman first of all.”
“If I should propose one, what would you say?”
“But—”
“You are surprised?”