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Mr. Spring Fragrance puffed his pipe in silence for some moments. More than politics was troubling his mind.

At last he spoke. “Love,” said he, slowly and distinctly, “comes before the wedding in this country, does it not?”

“Yes, certainly.”

Young Carman knew Mr. Spring Fragrance well enough to receive with calmness his most astounding queries.

“Presuming,” continued Mr. Spring Fragrance—“presuming that some friend of your father’s, living—presuming—in England—has a daughter that he arranges with your father to be your wife. Presuming that you have never seen that daughter, but that you marry her, knowing her not. Presuming that she marries you, knowing you not.—After she marries you and knows you, will that woman love you?”

“Emphatically, no,” answered the young man.

“That is the way it would be in America—that the woman who marries the man like that—would not love him?”

“Yes, that is the way it would be in America. Love, in this country, must be free, or it is not love at all.”

“In China, it is different!” mused Mr. Spring Fragrance.