“Here is to your friend the farmer’s health and prosperity,” he added, sipping his brown sherry with the air of a connoisseur. “A man in that position is very wise in deferring marriage as long as possible. In the case of the lower middle-class, too often ‘a young man married is a man that’s marred.’” “One must always take Anne Hathaway into consideration when one recalls Shakespeare’s reflections on the marriage state,” observed Lord Carthew. “A man who at eighteen marries a woman of six-and-twenty, beneath him in rank, and of questionable character, is hardly likely to entertain a high opinion of wedded life. Speaking for myself, I have always looked forward with out-of-date eagerness and interest to the day when I should bring home my bride. And I am most anxious to see my father and mother on the subject at the present time.” His eyes rested lovingly upon Stella, but as he had not directly used her name, she could hardly utter a disclaimer. The blood rushed to her cheeks as she realized that she was being placed in a wrong position altogether. Lord Carthew treated her, spoke to her, and alluded to her, as though there were some compact between them; and yet, as she had promised nothing, there was nothing to retract. If she were to assure him again privately, after dinner, that she did not love him, that would but be repeating what she had said to him before; he had said that he did not expect her love, and was glad to be content as yet with merely her liking. How could she say: “This morning I hardly knew that I had fallen in love with your friend at first sight, and I believed he disliked me extremely; also, the prospect of an escape from the Chase, and from my father’s tyranny, for both my mother and myself, seemed too good to be missed. But after you had spoken to me, and I had more than half encouraged you, your friend kissed me, and instantly I knew that I loved him with all my heart, as he loved me, and that marriage with you was absolutely impossible.” Clearly she could not make such a statement, especially in the face of what Lord Carthew himself had said of Hilary’s rooted aversion against marriage, together with the significant fact of his hasty departure from the Chase, without so much as telling her in so many words that he loved her.