"I do not know," she said. "I wish I did." She trailed her fingers in the water. "Perhaps it is a choice between being safe and being happy. Perhaps, after all, older persons know best. Do you think they do?"
The Duke of Dorset was interested in the woman rather than these speeches. The conversation was after a certain manner a thing apart. He did not attach it to this exquisite girl. It seemed rather a portion of some elaborate rite by which she was made to appear, to be, to remain. He continued it as one new at magic continues his formula, in order to hold in the world the vision he has called up. But the formula was not of the essence of this vision. It was words following after a certain fashion. He did not, then, go within for his replies, but without, to the custom of his country, to the established belief rather than his own. It was a moving of the man's mind along the lines of least resistance; as though the magician made up his formula from anything that he remembered, while the deeps of consciousness in him were enjoying the appearance that he held by it.
"Older persons," he said, "are possessed of a greater experience of life. They have gone a journey that youth is setting out on. They ought to know."
"How to be safe? Yes, I believe that," she replied. "I believe they know that. But how to be happy? I am not so certain. We have instincts that we feel are superior to any reason, instincts that seem to warn us—I mean a woman has. She has a sort of sense of happiness. I cannot make it plain. It is like the sense of direction that leads an animal home through an unfamiliar country. Put it down in a place it does not know, and it will presently set out in the right direction. We are like that. We feel that right direction. Older persons may insist that we take another path, but we feel it wrong. We feel that our happiness does not lie that way. Ought we to go against that instinct?"
The charm of the girl deepened as she spoke. She became more vital, more serious, more moved. And the attention of the man drew nearer to her and farther from what he said. He began to repeat arguments that he had heard when families had gone about the making of a marriage.
It was too important a matter to be governed by a whim, an inclination, a personal attachment. It was a great complex undertaking. Obligations lapped over into it from both the past and the future. The rights of one's people touched it. All the practical affairs of life touched it. The standards of one's ancestors must not be lowered. The thing was a human chain; every man must put in his link. The obligation on him was to make that link as good as his fathers had made it. He must not debase the metal, he must not alloy it. This was the great moving duty; against this no personal inclination ought to stand. Moreover, who would leave the sale of an estate or the investing of revenues to one having no experience of life; and yet, the making of a marriage was more important than the sale of any estate, or the placing of any revenues. It was the administration for life of a great trust in perpetuity.
The man was merely reciting. He was like that one playing at magic, merely feeding words into his formula one after another, as he could find them, because thereby the appearance that he was drawing out of the shadow was becoming more distinct.
The girl, leaning forward, was following every word with the greatest interest; her eyes wide, her lips parted. She was like some kelpie woman presented with the gift of life, inquiring of its conditions.
"You make me feel how great you English are," she said, "how big, and sane, and practical. No wonder you go about setting the world in order; but where does the poor little individual come in?"
"The house is greater than any member of it," replied the Duke.