W. Somerset Maugham

“ She believed privately that Margaret’s passion for the arts was a not unamiable pose which would disappear when she was happily married. To have half a dozen children was in her mind much more important than to paint pictures. Margaret’s talent was by no means despicable, but Susie was not convinced that callous masters would have been so enthusiastic if Margaret had been as plain and as old as herself. ”

“ Susie hesitated for a moment.
“I think he has an extraordinarily good face,” she said at last gravely. “I’ve never seen a man whose honesty of purpose was so transparent.”
Susie Boyd was so lazy that she could never be induced to occupy herself with household matters, and, while Margaret put the tea things away, she began to draw the caricature which every new face suggested to her. She made a little sketch of Arthur, abnormally lanky, with a colossal nose, with the wings and the bow and arrow of the God of Love, but it was not half done before she thought it silly. ”

“ We shall be married in two years, and we’ve known one another much too long to change our minds. I think that our lives are quite irrevocably united.”
Margaret wished very much to spend this time in Paris, and Arthur had made up his mind that in fairness to her they could not marry till she was nineteen. She consulted Susie Boyd, whose common-sense prevented her from paying much heed to romantic notions of false delicacy. ”

“ My dear, you’d take his money without scruple if you’d signed your names in a church vestry, and as there’s not the least doubt that you’ll marry, I don’t see why you shouldn’t now. Besides, you’ve got nothing whatever to live on, and you’re equally unfitted to be a governess or a typewriter. ”