ion to the Powys couple, since Leonora was the
third daughter and Edward ought to have married the eldest. Mrs Powys,
with her rigid sense of the proprieties, almost wished to reject the
proposal. But the Colonel, her husband, pointed out that the visit would
have cost them sixty pounds, what with the hire of an extra servant,
of a horse and car, and with the purchase of beds and bedding and extra
tablecloths. There was nothing else for it but the marriage. In that way
Edward and Leonora became man and wife.

I don't know that a very minute study of their progress towards complete
disunion is necessary. Perhaps it is. But there are many things that
I cannot well make out, about which I cannot well question Leonora, or
about which Edward did not tell me. I do not know that there was ever
any question of love from Edward to her. He regarded her, certainly, as
desirable amongst her sisters. He was obstinate to the extent of saying
that if he could not have her he would not have any of them. And, no
doubt, before the marriage, he made her pretty speeches out of books
that he had read. But, as far as he could describe his feelings at all,
later, it seems that, calmly and without any quickening of the pulse, he
just carried the girl off, there being no opposition. It had, however,
been all so long ago that it seemed to him, at the end of his poor life,
a dim and misty affair. He had the greatest admiration for Leonora.

He had the very greatest admiration. He admired her for her
truthfulness, for her cleanness of mind, and the clean-run-ness of her
limbs, for her efficiency, for the fairness of her skin, for the gold of
her hair, for her religion, for her sense of duty. It was a satisfaction
to take her about with him.

But she had not for him a touch of magnetism. I suppose, really, he did
not love her because she was never mournful; what really made him
feel good in life was to comfort somebody who would be darkly and
mysteriously mournful. That he had never had to do for Leonora. Perhaps,
also, she was at first too obedient. I do not mean to say that she was
submissive--that she deferred, in her judgements, to his. She did not.
But she had been handed over to him, like some patient medieval virgin;
she had been taught all her life that the first duty of a woman is to
obey. And there she was.

In her, at least, admiration for his qualities very soon became love of
the deepest description. If his pulses never quickened sh