"I grant that you are right there--we never do; neither do women ever know men. And yet each sex contrives to dupe and to fool the other! Listen to me. I have little acquaintance with my nephew, but I allow he is a handsome young gentleman, with whom a handsome young lady in her teens might fall in love in a ball-room. But you who have known the higher order of our species--you who have received the homage of men, whose thoughts and mind leave the small talk of drawing-room triflers--so poor and bald--you can not look me in the face and say that it is any passion resembling love which you feel for my nephew. And as to position, it is right that I should inform you that if he marry you he will have none. He may risk his inheritance. You will receive no countenance from his parents. You will be poor, but not free. You will not gain the independence you seek for. The sight of a vacant, discontented face in that opposite chair will be worse than solitude. And as to grateful affection," added the man of the world, "it is a polite synonym for tranquil indifference." "Mr. Egerton," said Beatrice, "people say you are made of bronze. Did you ever feel the want of a home?" "I answer you frankly," replied the statesman, "if I had not felt it, do you think I should have been, and that I should be to the last, the joyless drudge of public life? Bronze though you call my nature, it would have melted away long since like wax in the fire, if I had sat idly down and dreamed of a _Home_!" "But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, "have no public life, and we do idly sit down and dream. Oh," she continued, after a short pause, and clasping her hands firmly together, "you think me worldly, grasping, ambitious; how different my fate had been had I known a home!--known one whom I could love and venerate--known one whose smiles would have developed the good that was once within me, and the fear of whose rebuking or sorrowful eye would have corrected what is evil." "Yet," answered Audley, "nearly all women in the great world have had that choice once in their lives, and nearly all have thrown it away. How few of your rank really think of home when they marry--how few ask to venerate as well as to love--and how many of every rank, when the home has been really gained, have willfully lost its shelter; some in neglectful weariness--some from a momentary doubt, distrust, caprice--a wild fancy--a passionate fit--a trifle--a straw--a dream! True, you women are ever dreamers. Common sense, common earth, is above or below your comprehension."