“Oh, we won’t speak of all that,” he interrupted. “Of course I felt the prejudice against women entering the profession which we all feel; it was ridiculous and disgusting to me till I saw you. I won’t urge you from any personal motive to accept my offer. But I know that if you do you can realize all your hopes of usefulness; and I ask you to consider that certainly. But you know the only way it could be done.”
She looked him in the eyes, with dismay in her growing intelligence.
“What—what do you mean?”
“I mean that I ask you to let me help you carry out your plan of life, and to save all you have done, and all you have hoped, from waste—as your husband. Think”—
She struggled to her feet as if he were opposing a palpable resistance, so strongly she felt the pressure of his will. “It can’t be, Dr. Mulbridge. Oh, it can’t, indeed! Let us go back; I wish to go back!”
But he had planted himself in her way, and blocked her advance, unless she chose to make it a flight.
“I expected this,” he said, with a smile, as if her wild trepidation interested him as an anticipated symptom. “The whole idea is new and startling to you. But I know you won’t dismiss it abruptly, and I won’t be discouraged.”
“Yes, yes, you must! I will not think of it! I can’t! I do dismiss it at once. Let me go!”
“Then you really choose to be like the rest,—a thing of hysterical impulses, without conscience or reason! I supposed the weakest woman would be equal to an offer of marriage. And you had dreamt of being a physician and useful!”
“I tell you,” she cried, half quelled by his derision, “that I have found out that I am not fit for it,—that I am a failure and a disgrace; and you had no right to expect me to be anything else.”