Surely it was not enough that you should think of me only as
other people did; now, was it?'
The point was not to be got over. It was not enough.
'And that is just what I mean; that is just how it was with us,'
said Rosa. 'You liked me very well, and you had grown used to me,
and had grown used to the idea of our being married. You accepted
the situation as an inevitable kind of thing, didn't you? It was
to be, you thought, and why discuss or dispute it?'
It was new and strange to him to have himself presented to himself
so clearly, in a glass of her holding up. He had always patronised
her, in his superiority to her share of woman's wit. Was that but
another instance of something radically amiss in the terms on which
they had been gliding towards a life-long bondage?
'All this that I say of you is true of me as well, Eddy. Unless it
was, I might not be bold enough to say it. Only, the difference
between us was, that by little and little there crept into my mind
a habit of thinking about it, instead of dismissing it. My life is
not so busy as yours, you see, and I have not so many things to
think of. So I thought about it very much, and I cried about it
very much too (though that was not your fault, poor boy); when all
at once my guardian came down, to prepare for my leaving the Nuns'
House. I tried to hint to him that I was not quite settled in my
mind, but I hesitated and failed, and he didn't understand me. But
he is a good, good man.
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