‘And you do not believe, my grave cousin,’ said she, in her own half-jesting, wholly earnest way, ‘that a woman can love as deeply and long as the man who loves her?’
‘Bah!’ said I, bitterly, ‘women sometimes, like men, are revengeful, proud, or ambitious, but it is on a smaller scale. Every thing about them, every feeling and impulse is on a small scale. Very good objects they make for men to love; because, when one will be such a fool, it doesn’t much matter where he places his affection.’
The poor girl looked grieved, but responded with a semblance of gaiety nevertheless: ‘Ah, you think so now, but you will be just such a fool yourself, one of these days; and then you will find out that it is necessary for a woman to have a soul; and more than that—that she has one.’
‘Much obliged for your flattering opinion,’ said I. ‘But see here, my bonny Jane, did it never enter into your innocent little heart to think how you would love?’
‘Oh yes,’ she answered quickly; ‘but that is all guess-work. I don’t know, because I haven’t yet found a man to my taste.’
Of course I knew that I could not be to her taste; but a plain man does not like to be told that he is ugly, though he may be perfectly conscious of the fact. And so this avowal, which was made with the most unthinking honesty and simplicity, while it added weight to my despair, by a very usual consequence, made me desperate.
‘You are certain,’ I asked, after a pause, ‘that you do not know what love is by experience?’
‘Perfectly,’ she answered, half laughing.
‘And that you mean to know, some time?’
‘To be sure,’ said she, ‘when the right man and the right time come.’