“I think she did what thousands of other women have done,—she married the love rather than the lover.”
“No. I did not intend that. She married for quite other things than love: for greater freedom, for”—
“Would she have married,” I interrupted, “if she had not been sure that the hero loved her?”
You thought an instant, and then said, “No, I suppose not—and yet”—You stopped, and then continued impulsively, “I wonder if I shall shock you very much if I say that I have no faith in what we call love?”
“You do not shock me, Miss Walton, because I do not believe you.”
“It is true, nevertheless. Perhaps it is my own fault, but I have never found any love that was wholly free from self-indulgence or self-interest.”
“If you rate love so low, why did you make your heroine crave it?”
“One can desire love even when one cannot feel it.”
“Does one desire what one despises?”
“To scorn money does not imply a preference for poverty.”