"Not necessarily. Supposing, as I sat with my feet on the mantelpiece, that some one—some one particular—came into the room and tapped me on the shoulder, and said: 'Now then, wake up! I have a new frock on, and I want you to take me out somewhere where I can show it off'—Well, that would make all the difference in the world. I—I should be proud to go, then!"
These words were spoken hurriedly and awkwardly, for Philip's heart was beating furiously. He was getting near the climax of this laboriously engineered conversation, and it seemed almost too much to hope that he would be permitted to deliver the grand attack without being headed off. But he certainly was not prepared for Peggy's next remark.
"I see. Well, Theophilus, there is nothing else for it: we must find you a wife."
This was said quite deliberately, and needless to say, it entirely disorganised Philip's plan of campaign. With a sudden cold shock he realised that the conversation had taken another short cut, and that the crisis was upon him before he was ready.
"You are the sort of man," continued Peggy, in the same unruffled voice, "who would get along better in the world with a wife than without one. There are two kinds of men who marry, you know. One likes to make a position and then ask a woman to come and share it, and the other cannot make any position at all unless he has got the woman first. You are the second kind. Now"—Peggy bent her brows judicially, like a panel doctor prescribing for an out-patient—"do I know of any one who would suit you?"
Philip made a desperate attempt to release his tongue, which was cleaving to the roof of his mouth; but before he could do so Peggy had resumed her discourse.
"She must be the sort of girl," she said, "who likes being killed with kindness; because you are that sort, Mr. Philip."
"Don't all girls like being—" began Philip.
"No—not all. There are lots of women who rather despise kindness in a man. They prefer to be bullied by him, and regarded as tiresome, inferior creatures. For some mysterious reason it helps them to look up to him."
"Do you mean to say," exclaimed that simple-minded gentleman, Philip Meldrum, "that a woman would like a man just because—not although, mind, but because—he was a brute to her?"