That she was one of those
women--not too common in the Anglo-Saxon race--born to be loved and
to love, who when not loving are not living, had certainly never even
occurred to him. Her power of attraction, he regarded as part of her
value as his property; but it made him, indeed, suspect that she could
give as well as receive; and she gave him nothing! 'Then why did she
marry me?' was his continual thought. He had, forgotten his courtship;
that year and a half when he had besieged and lain in wait for her,
devising schemes for her entertainment, giving her presents, proposing
to her periodically, and keeping her other admirers away with his
perpetual presence. He had forgotten the day when, adroitly taking
advantage of an acute phase of her dislike to her home surroundings, he
crowned his labours with success. If he remembered anything, it was the
dainty capriciousness with which the gold-haired, dark-eyed girl
had treated him. He certainly did not remember the look on her
face--strange, passive, appealing--when suddenly one day she had
yielded, and said that she would marry him.
It had been one of those real devoted wooings which books and people
praise, when the lover is at length rewarded for hammering the iron till
it is malleable, and all must be happy ever after as the wedding bells.
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