‘Those were the words I used. I don’t blame her. She knew nothing about poverty. She was not afraid of it: it was rather a sort of excitement to her, as they say a revolution was to the French princesses. She laughed at it, and defied her father. If you think I liked that, or encouraged that, it is a mistake; but what could I do? And what am I to do now? Can I bring her here, do you think? What can I do with her? I am not well enough off to marry. I should never have dreamt of such a thing on my own account. If you could show me a way out of it, I should be very thankful. As for working one’s self into fame and fortune and all that kind of thing, you know a little what mere romance it is. Some fellows do it; but they don’t marry to begin with. I am almost glad you interviewed me to get this all out. What am I to do? I know no more than you can tell me. I have got the character of playing fast and loose, of behaving badly to a girl whom I love and respect; for I do love and respect her, mind you, whatever you and your belongings may think or say.’ ‘You could not well help yourself, so far as I can see,’ said the Curate hotly. ‘That is all you know. If you were in my place and knew the false position into which I have been brought, the expectations I have been supposed to raise, the reluctance I have seemed to show in carrying them out--by Jove! if you could only feel as I do all the miseries of my position, unable to stir a step one way or another----’ ‘I know men who would give their heads to stand in your position----’ ‘And what would they do in it?’ asked Douglas, pulling ineffectually at the pipe, which had long gone out. ‘Say yourself, for example; you are totally different--you have got your house and your settled income, and you know what is before you.’ ‘I can’t discuss it in this way. Do you imagine that I have as much to spend, to use your own argument,’ cried the Curate, ‘as you have here?’ ‘It is quite different,’ Douglas said. Then he added, with a sort of dogged determination, ‘I am getting on. I think I am getting the ball at my foot; but to marry at present would be destruction--and to her still more than to me.’ ‘Then the short and the long is----’ ‘The short and the long is exactly what I have told you. You may tell her yourself, if you please. Whatever love in a cottage may be, love in chambers is impossible. With her fortune we could have married, and it would have helped me on. Without it, such a thing would be madness, ruin to me and to her too.’ Charley rose up, stumbling to his feet. ‘This is all you have got to say?’ he said. ‘Yes, that is all I have got to say; and, to tell the truth, I think it is wonderfully good of me to say it, and not to show you politely to the door; but we are old friends, and you are her old friend----’