When he sighed, “I wanted you to be my wife” it was the “my” that thrilled her by its very selfishness; it was the past tense of the verb that alarmed her.
“You wanted me to be!” she gasped. “Don’t you want me any more?”
“God knows there’s nothing else I want in the world. But I can’t have you. My mother said that I couldn’t get you; she said that your ambition and the big money ahead of you would keep you from giving yourself to me.”
The primeval feud between a man’s mother and his wife surged up in her. She said, less in irony than she realized: “Oh, she said that, did she? Well, then, I’ll marry you just for spite.”
“If you only would, then I’d feel sure of you. I’d have no more fears.”
“All right. I’ll marry you.”
“When?”
“Whenever you say.”
“Now?”
“This minute.”