If he should not be altogether what he ought to
be--and which of us is?--then you will have the honor of
reclaiming him. But men settle down when they marry."
"And what comes of their wives?"
"What comes of women. You have your mother before you, Hesper."
"O mother!" cried Hesper, now at length losing the horrible
affectation of calm which she had been taught to regard as _de
rigueur_, "is it possible that you, so beautiful, so
dignified, would send me on to meet things you dare not tell me--
knowing they would turn me sick or mad? How dares a man like that
even desire in his heart to touch an innocent girl?"
"Because he is tired of the other sort," said Lady Malice, half
unconsciously, to herself. What she said to her daughter was ten
times worse: the one was merely a fact concerning Redmain; the
other revealed a horrible truth concerning herself. "He will
settle three thousand a year on you, Hesper," she said with a
sigh; "and you will find yourself mistress."
"I don't doubt it," answered Hesper, in bitter scorn. "Such a man
is incapable of making any woman a wife."
Hesper meant an awful spiritual fact, of which, with all her
ignorance of human nature, she had yet got a glimpse in her
tortured reflections of late; but her mother's familiarity with
evil misinterpreted her innocence, and caused herself utter
dismay. What right had a girl to think at all for herself in such
matters? Those were things that must be done, not thought of!
"These things must not be thought
After these ways; so, they will drive us mad.
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