Ian Hay

“ I love Dad and the boys, and Cilly, and Nicky, and Mr Dawks—don't I, Dawks, dear?—and I would do anything to save them pain or unhappiness. But I suppose that's not the sort of love that people call love. It seems to have been left out of my composition, or perhaps it hasn't cropped up yet. Now Cilly—I am her exact opposite—Cilly is always in love with some man or other. By the way, she told me last night when I went to dry her hair that she had just fallen in love with you, so evidently you aren't too old after all! Would it do as well if you married Cilly?" Daphne inquired tentatively. ”

“ A loveless marriage may lead to the ruin of two lives: on the other hand, it introduces into the proceedings an element of business and common-sense all too rare in such enterprises. It is true that the newly united pair dream no dreams and see no visions. ”

“ Still, marriage is a leap in the dark in any case, and humdrum philosophers must at least be excused for suggesting that one may as well endeavour to illuminate this hazardous feat of agility by the help of the Torch of Reason as not. ”

“ It is still more disconcerting when an individual whom Nature might with perfect propriety have appointed your father, and whom you with feminine perversity have adopted as a son, suddenly kicks over the traces and suggests as a compromise that he should occupy the intermediate position of husband. ”

“ I mention these things, not because I think they will influence your decision—I should not want you for a wife if I thought they would—but because I feel that every woman is entitled to a plain statement of fact about the man who wishes to marry her. ”