There's something in being respectable; although, for
that matter, I've see'd respectable people at Great Oakhurst as were
ten times worse than those as aren't. Still, a-speaking for myself,
I'd put up with a goodish bit to marry the man whose child wor mine.'
'For myself I could, but it wouldn't be just to him.'
'I don't see what you mean.'
'I mean that I could sacrifice myself if I believed it to be my duty,
but I should wrong him cruelly if I were to accept him and did not
love him with all my heart.'
'My dear, you take my word for it, he isn't so particklar as you are.
A man isn't so particklar as a woman. He goes about his work, and
has all sorts of things in his head, and if a woman makes him
comfortable when he comes home, he's all right. I won't say as one
woman is much the same as another to a man--leastways to all men--but
still they are NOT particklar. Maybe, though, it isn't quite the
same with gentlefolk like yourself,--but there's that blessed baby a-
cryin'.'
Mrs Caffyn hastened upstairs, leaving Madge to her reflections. Once
more the old dialectic reappeared. 'After all,' she thought, 'it is,
as Clara said, a question of degree. There are not a thousand
husbands and wives in this great city whose relationship comes near
perfection. If I felt aversion my course would be clear, but there
is no aversion; on the contrary, our affection for one another is
sufficient for a decent household and decent existence undisturbed by
catastrophes.
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