“He tells me so,” she answered, with a laugh. “How uncourtier-like you are, Paul! Do you suggest that any man could see me and not love me?”
She sprang to her feet. “I do not want his love,” she cried; “it would bore me. Women hate love they cannot return. I don't mean love like yours, devout little Paul,” she added, with a laugh. “That is sweet incense wafted round us that we like to scent with our noses in the air. Give me that, Paul; I want it, I ask for it. But the love of a hand, the love of a husband that one does not care for—it would be horrible!”
I felt myself growing older. For the moment my goddess became a child needing help.
“But have you thought—” I commenced.
“Yes, yes,” she interrupted me quickly, “I have thought and thought till I can think no more. There must be some sacrifice; it must be as little as need be, that is all. He does not love me; he is marrying me for my money—I know that, and I am glad of it. You do not know me, Paul. I must have rank, position. What am I? The daughter of rich old Hasluck, who began life as a butcher in the Mile End Road. As the Princess Huescar, society will forget, as Mrs.”—it seemed to me she checked herself abruptly—“Jones or Brown it would remember, however rich I might be. I am vain, Paul, caring for power—ambition. I have my father's blood in me. All his nights and days he has spent in gaining wealth; he can do no more. We upstarts have our pride of race. He has done his share, I must do mine.”
“But you need not be mere Mrs. anybody commonplace,” I argued. “Why not wait? You will meet someone who can give you position and whom at the same time you can love. Would that not be better?”
“He will never come, the man I could love,” she answered. “Because, my little Paul, he has come already. Hush, Paul, the queen can do no wrong.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “May I not know?”
“Yes, Paul,” she answered, “you shall know; I want you to know, then you shall tell me that I have acted rightly. Do you hear me, Paul?—quite rightly—that you still respect me and honour me. He could not help me. As his wife, I should be less even than I am, a mere rich nobody, giving long dinner-parties to other rich nobodies, living amongst City men, retired trades-people; envied only by their fat, vulgarly dressed wives, courted by seedy Bohemians for the sake of my cook; with perhaps an opera singer or an impecunious nobleman or two out of Dad's City list for my show-guests. Is that the court, Paul, where you would have your queen reign?”
“Is he so commonplace a man,” I answered, “the man you love? I cannot believe it.”