How can I hold you to a decision which was taken before you realised
what it meant? Now I shall place the facts before you, and then,
come what may, my conscience will be at rest, and I shall be sure
that you are acting with your eyes open.

You have to compare your life as it is, and as it will be. Your
father is rich, or at least comfortably off, and you have been
accustomed all your life to have whatever you desired. From what I
know of your mother's kindness, I should imagine that no wish of
yours has ever remained ungratified. You have lived well, dressed
well, a sweet home, a lovely garden, your collie, your canary, your
maid. Above all, you have never had anxiety, never had to worry
about the morrow. I can see all your past life so well. In the
mornings, your music, your singing, your gardening, your reading. In
the afternoons, your social duties, the visit and the visitor. In
the evening, tennis, a walk, music again, your father's return from
the City, the happy family-circle, with occasionally the dinner, the
dance, and the theatre. And so smoothly on, month after month, and
year after year, your own sweet, kindly, joyous nature, and your
bright face, making every one round you happy, and so reacting upon
your own happiness. Why should you bother about money? That was
your father's business. Why should you trouble about housekeeping?
That was your mother's duty. You lived like the birds and the
flowers, and had no need to take heed for the future. Everything
which life could offer was yours.

And now you must turn to what is in store for you, if you are still
content to face the future with me. Position I have none to offer.
What is the exact position of the wife of the assistant-accountant of
the Co-operative Insurance Office? It is indefinable. What are my