"
"But he does do harm. He makes things very uncomfortable. He has no
business to think it possible. People will suppose that I gave him
encouragement."
"I used to have lovers coming to me year after year,--the same
people,--whom I don't think I ever encouraged; but I never felt angry
with them."
"But you didn't have Mr. Spooner."
"Mr. Spooner didn't know me in those days, or there is no saying what
might have happened." Then Lady Chiltern argued the matter on views
directly opposite to those which she had put forward when discussing
the matter with her husband. "I always think that any man who is
privileged to sit down to table with you is privileged to ask.
There are disparities of course which may make the privilege
questionable,--disparities of age, rank, and means."
"And of tastes," said Adelaide.
"I don't know about that.--A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess,
nor a philosopher a philosopheress. A man may make himself a fool
by putting himself in the way of certain refusal; but I take it
the broad rule is that a man may fall in love with any lady who
habitually sits in his company.
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