But consider the life she has led! Grief has made her pale
and thin, staining her face with purple under the eyes. Can laughter
and song come out of a heart where fear is? Another life would change
all; she would be a flower amongst women."
Poor old simple-minded Santos, he had done himself great injustice;
his love for his mistress had inspired him with an eloquence that went
to my heart. And poor Demetria, driven by her weary, desolate life and
torturing fears to make in vain this unwomanly proposal to a stranger!
And, after all, it was not unwomanly; for in all countries where they
are not abject slaves it is permissible for women in some circumstances
to propose marriage. Even in England it is so, where society is like
a huge Clapham Junction, with human creatures moving like trucks and
carriages on cast-iron, conventional rails, which they can only leave
at the risk of a destructive collision. And a proposal of the kind was
never more justifiable than in this case. Shut away from the sight of
men in her dreary seclusion, haunted by nameless fears, her offer was
to bestow her hand along with a large property on a penniless
adventurer. Nor had she done this before she had learnt to love me,
and to think, perhaps, that the feeling was returned. She had waited,
too, till the very last moment, only making her offer when she had
despaired of its coming from me.
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