"Why not?" he echoed, and laid the tassel on the table. "Well, if you can ask that, I should say you don't know the facts of the case. If I had a sister, Madeleine, I shouldn't care to see her going about with that man. He's an old ?? ??—don't you know he has had two wives, and is divorced from both?"
"Fiddle-dee-dee! You and your sister! Do you think a man is going to come to nearly fifty without knowing something of life? That he hasn't been happy in his matrimonial relations is his misfortune, not his fault."
"Then it's true?"
"Why not?" she asked for the third time.
"Then, of course, I've nothing more to say. I've no right to interfere in your private affairs. I hoped I should still be in time—that's all."
"No, you can't go yet, sit still," she said peremptorily. "I too, have something to say.—But will you first tell me, please, what it can possibly matter to you, whether you are in time, as you call it, or not?"
"Why, of course, it matters.—We haven't seen much of each other lately; but you were my first friend here, and I don't forget it. Particularly in a case like this, where everything is against the idea of you marrying this man: your age—your character—all common sense."
"Those are only words, Maurice. With regard to my age, I am over twenty-seven, as you know. I need no boy of eighteen for a husband. Then I am plain: I shall never attract anyone by my personal appearance, nor will a man ever be led to do foolish things for my sake. I have worked hard all my life, and have never known what it is to let to-morrow take care of itself.—Now here, at last, comes a man of an age not wholly unsuitable to mine, whatever you may say. What though he has enjoyed life? He offers me, not only a certain social standing, but material comfort for the rest of my days. Whereas, otherwise, I may slave on to the end, and die eventually in a governesses' home."
"YOU would never do that. You are not one of that kind. But do you think, for a moment, you'd be happy in such a position of dependence?"
"That's my own affair. There would certainly be nothing extraordinary in it, if I were."