I desired Miss Gascoyne, and was determined to run the risk of asking her to marry me, though I was perfectly aware that it was after marriage that the battle would begin. She was not a woman to endure tamely any insult to the conventions, and she was not likely to agree with Dr. Johnson’s dictum: ‘Why, sir, a wise woman does not trouble herself about her husband’s infidelities.’ Domestic life would be a different matter if this were a recognised rule, which woman was brought up to regard as a principle of life. It is a fact, however, which a wise woman learns early, that a man’s infidelities need not in any way affect his supreme devotion to a particular female. The objection that in that case a woman should have the same privilege is childish, and can of course be refuted on the most elementary utilitarian grounds. If she desired such liberty, a fact which I doubt in the case of the normal woman, I think matters would have been differently arranged, and a more elastic scheme of rearing the young in civilised communities established. I certainly was prepared to sustain my passion for both women, and if society made it difficult, why, I must meet society with its own weapons. I was not going to agree to forego one woman because to a slightly greater degree I desired the other.
I might find out when matters settled down, as I hoped one day they would, that I loved Sibella the better. At present she was at a disadvantage, as the woman possessed always must be, by the side of the woman unpossessed. It was not perhaps brains that lifted Miss Gascoyne above Sibella; it was character. Miss Gascoyne would have sacrificed everything for principle. I could not imagine Sibella sacrificing much, even for prejudice.
I lived for the next few weeks in the greatest suspense. Mr. Hibbert-Wyllie was constantly at the Gascoynes’, and I was startled by a false report that the engagement was arranged and about to be announced. I heard it at Lady Pebworth’s. Her ladyship was a sort of cousin of Mr. Hibbert-Wyllie’s. It turned out to be a false rumour, but I spent a sleepless night. I spoke to Mr. Gascoyne about it the next day at the office.
“I hear that Mr. Hibbert-Wyllie and Miss Gascoyne are engaged.”
“Good gracious, I’ve heard nothing about it.”
In my relief I laughed gaily. “Then there can’t be any truth in it.”
“Who told you?”
“I heard it at Lady Pebworth’s.”
“Then it is evidently expected. If it takes place it is a match of my wife’s making, but I shouldn’t wonder if after all she were disappointed.”
“It would be a splendid match,” I said, hypocritically.