LADIES-IN-WAITING
our very first interview, and even silly I have my reserves.”
“Do you love them both equally?” I asked, trying to keep the note of sarcasm out of my voice.
“Certainly not. I care nothing about anybody but Tom Beckett, but Laura says that such a marriage will simply mean a life of self-indulgent luxury, idleness, and pleasure. She says marriage is something loftier and nobler than pleasing one’s self; that it ought to mean growth and development both to the man and the woman. She says that I should have no influence on Tom, and that I need somebody strong and serious to steady me. She says Tom and I would only frisk through life and leave the world no better or wiser than we found it. She even says” (and here she turned her face to the honeysuckles)—“I don’t like to repeat it, but Laura is so advanced she makes my embarrassment seem simply idiotic—she even says that the children of such a union would be incurably light-minded and trivial; and
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