Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

30. CHAPTER XXX: MARY BELTON (continued)

'I cannot agree to that, Mary.'

'Is all his life nothing, then? Do you know what love means with him this love which he bears to you? Do you understand that it is everything to him? that from the first moment in which he acknowledged to himself that his heart was set upon you, he could not bring himself to set it upon any other thing for a moment? Perhaps you have never understood this; have never perceived that he is so much in earnest, that to him it is more than money, or land, or health more than life itself that he so loves that he would willingly give everything that he has for his love? Have you known this?'

Clara would not answer these questions for a while. What if she had known it all, was she therefore bound to sacrifice herself? Could it be the duty of any woman to give herself to a man simply because a man wanted her? That was the argument as it was put forward now by Mary Belton.

'Dear, dearest Clara,' said Mary Belton, stretching herself forward from her chair, and putting out her thin, almost transparent, hand, 'I do not think that you have thought enough of this; or, perhaps, you have not known it. But his love for you is as I say. To him it is everything. It pervades every hour of every day, every corner in his life! He knows nothing of anything else while he is in his present state.'

'He is very good more than good.'

'He is very good.'

'But I do not see that that Of course I know how disinterested he is.'

'Disinterested is a poor word. It insinuates that in such a matter there could be a question of what people call interest.'

'And I know, too, how much he honours me.'