As Ingram put it to her, it
attracted her newborn pride of knowledge. She was to flesh her steel, so
to speak, in reality: in plainer words, she, with her smattering of
accounts, was to manage a great house, an army of servants, possibly an
estate. Excessively in love as she was, with all the music of it in her
untried ears, she knew already in herself that her mind must have other
food than her heart's rapture. I think, indeed, that she would have
declined him altogether if he had proposed nothing more tangible to her
than perpetual honeymoon. That was what Senhouse would certainly have
proposed to her--she saw that in every look of his, and read it in every
line he sent her; but that had never attracted her. She had given Senhouse
her confidence, but not her heart. Ingram's proposals, therefore, pleased
her. She had not a sweet enough tooth, nor the taste for flattery which
the other involved. She was entirely without vanity. Therefore, however
little honourable and however much a lover of his ease Ingram may have
shown himself in making them, his reasonable proposals were gratefully
received. It was he who suggested, but she who took the lead. She began
immediately to plan her new career--was perfectly business-like.
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