I would never have let myself
go. But I saw him first in the National Gallery, when he winced
because my father mispronounced the names of great painters. Then
he brings us here, and we find it is to play some silly trick on
a kind neighbour. That is the man all over--playing tricks on
people, on the most sacred form of life that he can find. Next, I
meet you together, and find him protecting and teaching you and
your mother to be shocked, when it was for YOU to settle whether
you were shocked or no. Cecil all over again. He daren't let a
woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand
years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you
what's charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man
thinks womanly; and you, you of all women, listen to his voice
instead of to your own. So it was at the Rectory, when I met you
both again; so it has been the whole of this afternoon. Therefore
--not 'therefore I kissed you,' because the book made me do that,
and I wish to goodness I had more self-control.
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