Читать книгу White Magic. A Novel онлайн

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The gray eyes opened wide.

“Nothing to do with each other,” pursued he tranquilly. “Love is all excitement; marriage ought to be all calm. Marriage means a home—a family—a place to bring up children in peace and tranquillity, a safe harbor. Love is a Bohemian; marriage is a bourgeois. Love is insanity; marriage is sanity. Love is disease; marriage is solid, stolid health.”

“I think those ideas are just horrid!” cried she.

He laughed at her with his eyes. In a tone of raillery he said: “And you—who love money, you say—do you intend to marry for love?—just love?—only love?”

Her eyes shifted. He laughed aloud. Her glance fell.

“Not a thought about his income—prospects?” he mocked.

She recovered from her confusion, laughed back at him a confession that she had been fairly caught in a refined, womanly hypocrisy—woman being the official high priestess of the sentimentalities. “But I don’t approve of myself—not in the least,” cried she. “In my better moments I’m ashamed of myself.”

“You needn’t be,” said he cheerfully. “You’re simply human. And one need never apologize for being human.”