‘What you say might be true of most girls of my age. If I am hard, it is not because of my youth, or my inexperience. I have had’--Marjorie’s face flamed to the hue of the poppies in the corn--‘what the world is pleased to call a sweetheart. But for the interposition of Providence (I remember that interposition, night and morning, on my knees) I should be married now.’ ‘Unless he loved you above everything, you are best as you are, Miss Bartrand. In marriage it is all or nothing. I mean--I mean,’ Dinah hesitated, ‘no wife could be happy with half a heart bestowed on her.’ ‘Half! What do you say to a quarter, a fraction?’ exclaimed Marjorie, hotly. ‘What do you say to a creature stuffed as the dolls are, with sawdust, in lieu of a human heart at all? A creature well set up as regards shoulders, six feet in measurement, with fine white teeth, blue eyes, yellow moustache, a swagger and a sword? His would scarcely be the larger soul, Mrs. Arbuthnot, the stronger will which it should be a woman’s crown of honour to obey!’ Down went another head of clustering camomile, felled by a well-aimed stroke from Marjorie’s hand. Her eyes flashed fire. ‘And yet a wayward girl, scarcely past sixteen, and with no mother to give her counsel, might for two or three weeks, you know, be hurried into thinking such a man a hero. I was that girl, Mrs. Arbuthnot. Vanity blinded me, or the love of power, or something stronger than either. At all events, when Major Tredennis asked me, one fine morning, to be engaged to him, I said “Yes.”’ ‘And the Seigneur of Tintajeux?’ asked Dinah, looking round at the dimpled, indignant face of seventeen. ‘“Major Tredennis comes of a race of gentlemen,” said grandpapa. “If Major Tredennis can make adequate settlements, and my granddaughter elects to spend her life with a popinjay, she may do so.”’ ‘And, with no better advice than that, you were engaged?’ ‘I was engaged. Major Tredennis used to write me foolish notes. He gave me a ring I never wore. He gave me chocolate creams, and a setter puppy. He sang French songs to me in an English accent. Looking back at it all now, I think the chocolate creams were the best part of that bad time, except, of course, the setter, _whom I loved_. When it was all broken off--for the owner of the white teeth and the sword was a right wicked craven, and should have married a girl in England who cared for him, without once looking at me;--when it was all broken off, and I had to send Jock back, I did weep, scalding tears, at parting from him. The only tears I have ever shed, or shall shed, in connection with love-matters.’ ‘Wait!’ was Dinah Arbuthnot’s answer. ‘If I see you, as I hope to do, two or three years hence, it may be you will tell a different story.’