"And if he stays here, he'll feel like killing himself."
"Not if you look after him."
"I look after him? How can I?"
"There are ways."
She looked at me with tightened lips for a moment, and then said: "It is what you call an irony—is it not?—that I should have understanding of him but no power—while she—this woman in England—has power but no understanding."
"But you have power, Mizzi."
She shook her head, smiling. "As much as you have—as much as anybody has, maybe, except her. You see, I understand him." She added, with no change in the level calmness of her tone: "You will be surprised, no doubt—when I tell you that last night he asked me to marry him."
I had to try to seem surprised, and I was surprised, quite genuinely, at her manner of telling me. She went on, almost casually: "I know why he asked me to marry him. It was so that if I said 'yes,' he would feel bound to me—and therefore less bound to her. He wants to love me, and he doesn't want to love her."
"I know he's very fond of you, Mizzi."
"Oh, yes, I daresay. But that is not quite good enough for me. I am a business woman, and I do not think the bargain is fair unless he loves me."