"Not unless they are asked."
"Oh well, they are sure to be asked, and they are sure to go. If their
mothers had not done so before them, where would they be? It's all
very well for you to talk about it and argue it out as a theory, but
I know what the facts of the case are, and what any man in my position
would do; and I know that I am careless of any consequences so long as
I can secure her for my wife."
"Apparently you are--careless of any consequences to herself or those
about her."
"But what is your objection, Ingram?" said the young man, suddenly
abandoning his defiant manner: "why should you object? Do you think I
would make a bad husband to the woman I married?"
"I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good
husband if you were to marry a woman whom you knew something about,
and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your
knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie
as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six
months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected."
"Very well, then," said Lavender with an air of triumph, "you can't
deny this: you think so much of her that the real woman I would
discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don't
expect I shall be disappointed?"
"If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed--not through
her fault, but your own.
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