In fact,
I'm not sure I don't think it would be the best thing
for you to do. Marriage, a home, children--these are great
things to a woman. We can say that she pays the price
of bondage for them--but to know what that signifies,
we must ask what her freedom has been worth to her."
"Yes," interposed the other, from the window. "What have
I done with my freedom that has been worth while?"
"Not much," murmured Celia, under her breath.
She moved forward, and stood beside Edith, with an arm
round her waist. They looked together at the lake.
"It is Lord Plowden, is it not?" asked the American,
as the silence grew constrained.
Lady Cressage looked up alertly, and then hesitated over
her reply. "No," she said at last. Upon reflection,
and with a dim smile flickering in her side-long glance
at Celia, she added, "He wants to marry you, you know."
"Leave that out of consideration," said Celia, composedly.
"He has never said so. I think it was more his mother's
idea than his, if it existed at all. Of course I am
not marrying him, or anybody else. But I saw at Hadlow
that you and he were--what shall I say?--old friends."
"He must marry money," the other replied. In an unexpected
burst of candour she went on: "He would have asked me to
marry him if I had had money. There is no harm in telling
you that.
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