"I think," said Di, after several false starts to speak, "that if I only considered myself I would marry you; but there is the happiness of one other person to think of—yours."
"I can't have any apart from you."
"You would have none with me. If it is miserable to care for any one who is indifferent, it would be a thousand times more miserable to be married to that person."
"Not if it were you."
"Yes, if it were I."
"I would take the risk," said Lord Hemsworth, who held, in common with most men, the rooted conviction that a woman will become attached to any husband, however little she cares for her lover. It is precisely this conviction which makes the average marriages of the present day such mediocre affairs; which serves to place worldly or facile women, or those whose affections have never been called out, at the head of so many homes; as the mothers of the new generation from which we hope so much.
"I would take any risk," repeated Lord Hemsworth, doggedly. "I would rather be unhappy with you than happy with any one else."
"You think so now," said Di; "but the time would come when you would see that I had cut you off from the best thing in the world—from the love of a woman who would care for you as much as you do for me."
"I don't want her. I want you."
"I cannot marry you."