We shall gain nothing but unhappiness. Look
at me, Ralph." He looked at her. "I assure you that I'm far more
ordinary than I appear. Beauty means nothing whatever. In fact, the
most beautiful women are generally the most stupid. I'm not that, but
I'm a matter-of-fact, prosaic, rather ordinary character; I order the
dinner, I pay the bills, I do the accounts, I wind up the clock, and I
never look at a book."
"You forget--" he began, but she would not let him speak.
"You come and see me among flowers and pictures, and think me
mysterious, romantic, and all the rest of it. Being yourself very
inexperienced and very emotional, you go home and invent a story about
me, and now you can't separate me from the person you've imagined me
to be. You call that, I suppose, being in love; as a matter of fact
it's being in delusion. All romantic people are the same," she added.
"My mother spends her life in making stories about the people she's
fond of. But I won't have you do it about me, if I can help it."
"You can't help it," he said.
"I warn you it's the source of all evil."
"And of all good," he added.
"You'll find out that I'm not what you think me.
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