'And why, pray, should you not marry
her?' she returned. I answered that I did not love her, and would not
marry until I saw the woman I could not be happy without, and she
accepted me. She went into a terrible passion, but I found myself quite
unmoved by it: it is a wonderful heartener to know yourself not merely
standing up for a right, but for the right to do the right thing! 'You
wouldn't surely have me marry a woman I didn't care a straw for!' I said.
'Quench my soul!' she cried--I have often wondered where she learned the
oath--'what would that matter? She wouldn't care a straw for you in a
month!'--'Why should I marry her then?'--'Because your mother wishes it,'
she replied, and turned to march from the room as if that settled the
thing. But I could not leave it so. The sooner she understood the better!
'Mother!' I cried, 'I will not marry the lady. I will not pay her the
least attention that could be mistaken to mean the possibility of it.'
She turned upon me. I have just respect enough left for her, not to say
what her face suggested to me. She was pale as a corpse; her very lips
were colourless; her eyes--but I will not go on. 'Your father all over!'
she snarled--yes, snarled, with an inarticulate cry of fiercest loathing,
and turned again and went. If I do not quite think my mother, _at
present_, would murder me, I do think she would do anything short of
murder to gain her ends with me.
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