Stuart (interrupting). For yourself?
Mrs. V. T. (laughing). No, for Agnes. But surely you don’t expect me to work against my brother-in-law?
Stuart. But Agnes is your cousin. Do consider her!
Mrs. V. T. Mr. Stuart, I married Alexander Van Tromp without caring that (snaps her fingers) for him. Yet we hit it off together very nicely. He obtained income and I won social position. By it I have been able to introduce my uncle into good society, and give Agnes her pick of the best. Do you think I do her wrong in planning the same kind of a marriage for her?
Stuart. Has Cupid no rights?
Mrs. V. T. He can come later. The Van Tromps are too old a family for the members to live long. So I am only giving Agnes a few years of matrimony, like my own; and then—well, you know whether my life is gloomy or otherwise.
Stuart. Mostly otherwise, I should say.
Mrs. V. T. No girl of nineteen knows enough to pick out the man she can breakfast with three hundred and sixty-five days in the year for half a century. Moreover, a young girl cannot have a large enough choice. She can only say “yes” or “no” to those who ask her. On the contrary, a woman of—we’ll say twenty-eight—picks out her man and fascinates him. To quote the French again: “A girl of sixteen accepts love; a woman of thirty incites it.”
Stuart. As you have been doing?
Mrs. V. T. Agnes shall sample matrimony with Regie; see just what it is like; and then be prepared to select a second time with wisdom and discrimination—like her aged and venerable cousin.