"
"A man like him--marrying a lady! And marrying YOU!" Lucia threw
her arms round her sister's neck and dissolved in tears. "Oh,
Rita, Rita!" she sobbed. "You are the dearest, loveliest girl on
earth. I'm sure you're not doing it for yourself, at all. I'm sure
you're doing it for my sake."
"You're quite wrong," said Rita, who was sitting unmoved and was
looking like her grandmother. "I'm doing it for myself. I'm fond,
of luxury--of fine dresses and servants and all that....Think of
the thousands, millions of women who marry just for a home and a
bare living! ... No doubt, there's something wrong about the whole
thing, but I don't see just what. If woman is made to lead a
sheltered life, to be supported by a man, to be a man's plaything,
why, she can't often get the man she'd most like to be the
plaything of, can she?"
"Isn't there any such thing as love?" Lucia ventured wistfully.
"Marrying for love, I mean."
"Not among OUR sort of people, except by accident," Margaret
assured her. "The money's the main thing. We don't say so. We try
not to think so. We denounce as low and coarse anybody that does
say so. But it's the truth, just the same .
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