"What do you know about men, my darling?" she said soothingly. "You have been dreaming romantic dreams, and young Levine does not resemble the hero. That is all. Women readjust themselves marvellously quick. When you are married to him, and he is your tender and devoted husband, you will forget your prince--who, no doubt, is dark and quite splendid. But we never meet our princes, my dear, and romantic love is only one of the things we live for--and for that we live but a little while. Levine is all that I could wish for you. He is wealthy, aristocratic, and chivalrously devoted." Her long speech had given her daughter time to cool, but Rachael remained standing, and stared defiantly into the eyes which had relaxed somewhat with anxious surprise. "I _feel_ that he is not a good man," she repeated sullenly, "and I hate him. I should die if he touched me. I have not danced with him. His hands are so white and soft, and his eyes never change, and his mouth reminds me of a shark's." "Levine is a remarkably handsome man," exclaimed Mistress Fawcett, indignantly. "You have trained your imagination to some purpose, it seems. Forget your poets when he comes to-morrow, and look at him impartially. And cannot he give you all that you so much desire, my ambitious little daughter? Do you no longer want to go to Europe? to court? to be _grande dame_ and converse with princes?" "Oh, yes," said Rachael. "I want that as much as ever; but I want to love the man. I want to be happy." "Well, _do_ love him," exclaimed her mother with energy. "Your father was twenty years older than myself, and a Frenchman, but I made up my mind to love him, and I did--for a good many years." "You had to leave him in the end. Do you wish me to do the same?" "You will do nothing of the kind. There never was but one John Fawcett." "I don't love this Levine, and I never shall love him. I don't believe at all that that kind of feeling can be created by the brain, that it responds to nothing but the will. I shall not love that way. I may be ignorant, but I know that." "You have read too much Shakespeare! Doubtless you imagine yourself one of his heroines--Juliet? Rosalind?" "I have never imagined myself anybody but Rachael Fawcett. I _cannot_ imagine myself Rachael Levine. But I know something of myself--I have read and thought enough for that. I could love someone--but not this bleached repulsive Dane. Why will you not let me wait? It is my right. No, you need not curl your lip--I am _not_ a little girl. I may be sixteen. I may be without experience in the world, but you have been almost my only companion, and until just now I have talked with middle-aged men only, and much with them. I had no real childhood. You have educated my brain far beyond my years. To-day I feel twenty, and it seems to me that I see far down into myself--much deeper than you do. I tell you that if I marry this man, I shall be the most hopeless wretch on earth."