eness of marrying for wealth and position; a baseness of which women
of your class stand in constant peril. They court it; you must shun it.
The man is honorable and loves you; he is young, healthy, and suitable.
What more do you think the world has to offer you?"

"Much more, I hope. Very much more."

"I fear that the names I give things are not romantic enough. He is a
poet. Perhaps he would be a hero if it were possible for a man to be a
hero in this nineteenth century, which will be infamous in history as
a time when the greatest advances in the power of man over nature only
served to sharpen his greed and make famine its avowed minister. Erskine
is at least neither a gambler nor a slave-driver at first hand; if he
lives upon plundered labor he can no more help himself than I. Do not
say that you hope for much more; but tell me, if you can, what more you
have any chance of getting? Mind, I do not ask what more you desire; we
all desire unutterable things. I ask you what more you can obtain!"

"I have not found Mr. Erskine such a wonderful person as you seem to
think him."

"He is only a man. Do you know anybody more wonderful?"

"Besides, my family might not approve."

"They most certainly will not. If you wish to please them, you must sell
yourself to some rich vampire of the factories or great landlord. If you
give yourself away to a poor poet who loves you, their disgust will be
unbounded. If a woman wishes to honor her father and mother to their own
satisfaction nowadays she must dishonor herself."

"I do not understand why you should be so anxious for me to marry
someone else?"

"Someone else?" said Trefusis, puzzled.

"I do not mean someone else," said Gertrude hastily, reddening. "Why
should I marry at all?"

"Why do any of us marry? Why do I marry? It is a function craving
fulfilment. If you do not marry betimes from choice, you will be driven
to do so later on by the importunity of your suitors and of your family,
and by weariness of the suspense that precedes a definite settlement of
oneself. Marry generously. Do not throw yourself away or sell yourself;
give yourself away. Erskine has as much at stake as you; and yet he
offers himself fearlessly."

Gertrude raised her head proudly.

"It is true," continued Trefusis, observing the gesture with some anger,
"that he thinks more highly of you than you deserve; but you, on the
other hand, think too lowly of him. When you marry him you must save h