第213章

'There is an end of it then.'

'But I have liked you so well;--so much better than all others! A dozen men have asked me to marry them. And though they might be nothing till they made the request, then they became,--things of horror to me. But you were not a thing of horror. I could have become your wife, and I think I would have learned to love you.'

'It is best as it is.'

'I ought to say so too; but I have a doubt I should have liked to be Duchess of Omnium, and perhaps I might have fitted the place better than one who can as yet know but little of its duties or its privileges. I may, perhaps, think that that other arrangement would have been better even for you.'

'I can take care of myself in that.'

'I should have married you without loving you, but I should have done so determined to serve you with a devotion which a woman who does love hardly thinks necessary. I would have so done my duty that you should never have guessed that my heart had been in the keeping of another man.'

'Another man!'

'Yes; of course. If there had been no other man, why not you? Am I so hard, do you think that I can love no one? Are you not such a one that a girl would naturally love,--were she not preoccupied?

That a woman should love seems as necessary as that a man should not.'

'A man can love too.'

'No;--hardly. He can admire, and he can like, and he can fondle and be fond. He can admire, and approve, and perhaps worship. He can know of a woman that she is part of himself, the most sacred part, and therefore will protect her from the very winds. But all that will not make love. It does not come to a man that to be separated from a woman is to be dislocated from his very self. A man has but one centre, and that is himself. A woman has two. Though the second may never be seen by her, may live in the arms of another, may do all for that other that man can do for a woman,--still, still, though he be half the globe asunder from her, still he is to her the other half of her existence. If she really love, there is, I fancy, no end of it. To the end of time I shall love Frank Tregear.'

'Tregear!'

'Who else?'

'He is engaged to Mary.'

'Of course he is. Why not;--to her or to whomsoever else he might like best? He is as true I doubt not to your sister as you are to your American beauty,--or as you would have been to me had fancy held. He used to love me.'

'You were always friends.'

'Always;--dear friends. And he would have loved me if a man were capable of loving. But he could sever himself from me easily, just when he was told to do so. I thought that I could do the same.

But I cannot. A jackal is born a jackal, and not lion, and cannot help himself. So is a woman born--a woman. They are clinging, parasite things, which cannot but adhere; though they destroy themselves by adhering. Do not suppose that I take pride in it. I would give one of my eyes to be able to disregard him.'

'Time will do it.'

'Yes; time,--that brings wrinkles and rouge-pots and rheumatism.

Though I have so hated those men as to be unable to endure them, still I want some man's house, and his name,--some man's bread and wine,--some man's jewels and titles and woods and parks and gardens,--if I can get them. Time can help a man in his sorrow. If he begins at forty to make speeches, or to win races, or to breed oxen, he can yet live a prosperous life. Time is but a poor consoler for a young woman who has to be married.'

'Oh Mabel.'

'And now let there be not a word more about it. I know--that I can trust you.'

'Indeed you may.'

'Though you will tell her everything else you will not tell her this.'

'No;--not this.'

'And surely you will not tell your sister!'

'I shall tell no one.'

'It is because you are so true that I have dared to trust you. I had to justify myself,--and then to confess. Had I at that moment taken you at your word, you would have never have known anything of all this. "There is a tide in the affairs of men-!" But I let the flood go by! I shall not see you again before you are married; but come to me afterwards.'