“I’m very sorry,” she said, prettily contrite. He bit his cheek. “Not your fault, of course—all mine. I got interested in you when I found you in the wire—highly romantic that sort of thing. And—and—so it’s gone on. Well—” He looked at her anxiously. “Well, I shall do harm, I’m certain; but I’ll tell you what I think if you insist on it.” She clapped her hands, glowed and sparkled like a diamond. She looked bewitchingly pretty.
“Please, please! I won’t speak a word until you’ve done.”
He sat, and began slowly.
“I stick to my opinion of classes, of course. You aren’t in a position to judge; you’ve never had a ghost of a chance. As far as men go, there are only two classes—men who can behave and men who can’t. My father taught me when I was a boy to call all men men, and all women ladies. There was the man who swept the crossing, and the man who sat on the Bench; but I remember that I got into a row for talking about the ‘woman’ who sold matches. ‘All women are ladies unless you know to the contrary,’ said my father. ‘Don’t you ever forget that!’ And I never did. If you’ll forgive me, there’s nothing in what you say about your own unworthiness and Germain’s magnanimity except one thing—and that is, that you, who have everything to gain, are the last person to admit what is so obviously true. And you are not quite honest. You don’t fear yourself really—you are confident in your inmost heart that you can learn what you suppose to be solemn duties. But—” He collected himself for his But, while she hung her detected head.
“But he, mind you, is persuaded—and it’s you who are helping him to believe—that he is a superior person doing you an enormous honour. He calls it kindness, of course, and so do you—oh, so do you! and that’s what he’s in love with mostly—the idea of exalting you, putting you on a pedestal, kneeling, making sacrifice, burning incense. He’s full of it—he was trembling with it to-day—and he’ll do it, I’m certain, and then retire into his inner chamber and beat his breast and cry to his soul, ‘How lovely she is—how sensitive to these wonderful honours! I put her there, O God! I did it—under Thee! Lord, I thank Thee for this glorious work which is mine.’ I suppose you think I’m a maniac. I’m frightfully sane. . . .”
“He’ll be as happy as a king, like his betters before him, Cophetua I., Cophetua II.—the whole dynasty. That’s his point of view, you know, and it’s not a bad one. It’s very artistic. Old Tennyson saw that. But before you lend yourself to it—a girl like—well, any girl you please—I do think you should ask yourself where you come in. How much worship can you stand? How long can you be sensitive to benefits and honours? How long before they become matters of course? How long before you want the real thing? Because I need not tell you that there is a real thing——”
Had he not broken off here she would not have met his eyes—nor he hers. The saying would have been merged in the general drift of his harangue, which was serious enough. But she caught at the break, caught at the words, caught at the sense, looked at him seriously, looked at him full. His eyes, being upon her, met hers, and held them. She was confounded. That moment of interconsciousness was fully charged: it is much to his credit that he slipped out without abruptness.
He took a turn up and down the road before he went on.
“A man will go through life possessed with an idea, and be absolutely happy with it. Don’t have any fears on his account. It is all that he wants: the woman’s only business is to lend herself to it. But we’re considering the woman—and there’s this great difference. They don’t like ideas at all. They like things—that they can touch, stroke, handle, nurse, wash and dress. If you find such things, you are all right. But if you don’t——”
And then he stopped—in spite of her. She tried him with a “Well, what then?” but could get nothing more from him.