"I am not engaged, nor in the least likely to be."
"And not in love either?" said Hesper--with such coolness that
Mary looked up in her face to know if she had really said so.
"No," she replied.
"No more am I," echoed Hesper; "that is the one good thing in the
business: I sha'n't break my heart, as some girls do. At least,
so they say--I don't believe it: how could a girl be so indecent?
It is bad enough to marry a man: that one can't avoid; but to die
of a broken heart is to be a traitor to your sex. As if women
couldn't live without men!"
Mary smiled and was silent. She had read a good deal, and thought
she understood such things better than Miss Mortimer. But she
caught herself smiling, and she felt as if she had sinned. For
that a young woman should speak of love and marriage as Miss
Mortimer did, was too horrible to be understood--and she had
smiled! She would have been less shocked with Hesper, however,
had she known that she forced an indifference she could not feel
--her last poor rampart of sand against the sea of horror rising
around her. But from her heart she pitied her, almost as one of
the lost.
"Don't fix your eyes like that," said Hesper, angrily, "or I
shall cry. Look the other way, and listen.--I am marrying money,
I tell you--and for money; therefore, I ought to get the good of
it. Mr. Mortimer will be father enough to see to that! So I shall
be able to do what I please.
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