Page 491 - of-human-bondage-

ful thing to him to marry a waitress. A common wife would
prevent him from getting a decent practice. Besides, he had
only just enough money to last him till he was qualified; he
could not keep a wife even if they arranged not to have chil-
dren. He thought of Cronshaw bound to a vulgar slattern,
and he shuddered with dismay . He foresaw what Mildred,
with her genteel ideas and her mean mind, would become:
it was impossible for him to marry her. But he decided only
with his reason; he felt that he must have her whatever hap-
pened; and if he could not get her without marrying her he
would do that; the future could look after itself. It might
end in disaster; he did not care. When he got hold of an
idea it obsessed him, he could think of nothing else, and
he had a more than common power to persuade himself
of the reasonableness of what he wished to do. He found
himself overthrowing all the sensible arguments which had
occurred to him against marriage. Each day he found that
he was more passionately devoted to her; and his unsatis-
fied love became angry and resentful.
‘By George, if I marry her I’ll make her pay for all the suf-
fering I’ve endured,’ he said to himself.
At last he could bear the agony no longer. After dinner
one evening in the little restaurant in Soho, to which now
they often went, he spoke to her.
‘I say, did you mean it the other day that you wouldn’t
marry me if I asked you?’
‘Yes, why not?’
‘Because I can’t live without you. I want you with me al-
ways. I’ve tried to get over it and I can’t. I never shall now. I

0 Of Human Bondage