CHAPTER XXV

THE SQUIRE GIVES HIS CONSENT

Edward Cossey did not come away from the scene of his engagement in a
very happy or triumphant tone of mind. Ida's bitter words stung like
whips, and he understood, and she clearly meant he should understand,
that it was only in consideration of the money advanced that she had
consented to become his wife. Now, however satisfactory it is to be
rich enough to purchase your heart's desire in this fashion, it is not
altogether soothing to the pride of a nineteenth-century man to be
continually haunted by the thought that he is a buyer in the market
and nothing but a buyer. Of course, he saw clearly enough that there
was an object in all this--he saw that Ida, by making obvious her
dislike, wished to disgust him with his bargain, and escape from an
alliance of which the prospect was hateful to her. But he had no
intention of being so easily discouraged. In the first place his
passion for the woman was as a devouring flame, eating ever at his
heart. In that at any rate he was sincere; he did love her so far as
his nature was capable of love, or at any rate he had the keenest
desire to make her his wife. A delicate-minded man would probably have
shrunken from forcing himself upon a woman under parallel
circumstances; but Edward Cossey did not happen to fall into that
category. As a matter of fact such men are not as common as they might
be.

Another thing which he took into account was that Ida would probably
get over her dislike. He was a close observer of women, in a cynical
and half contemptuous way, and he remarked, or thought that he
remarked, a curious tendency among them to submit with comparative
complacency to the inevitable whenever it happened to coincide with
their material advantage. Women, he argued, have not, as a class,
outgrown the traditions of their primitive condition when their
partners for life were chosen for them by lot or the chance of battle.
They still recognise the claims of the wealthiest or strongest, and
their love of luxury and ease is so keen that if the nest they lie in
is only soft enough, they will not grieve long over the fact that it
was not of their own choosing. Arguing from these untrustworthy
premises, he came to the conclusion that Ida would soon get over her
repugnance to marrying him, when she found how many comforts and good
things marriage with so rich a man would place at her disposal, and
would, if for n