"
"Well, say what you like."
"Nothing to say except that Clare isn't altogether an easy problem. You're
like all the other fellows I know--think because Clare's got red hair and
laughs easily she's a goddess--she isn't, not a bit! She's got magnificent
qualities and one day perhaps, when she's had a thoroughly bad time, she'll
show one the kind of things she's made of. But she's an only child, she's
been spoilt all her life and the moment she begins to be unhappy she's
impossible."
"She shan't ever be unhappy if I can help it!" muttered Peter fiercely.
Bobby laughed. "You'll do your best of course, but are you the sort of man
for her? She wants some one who'll give her every kind of comfort, moral,
physical and intellectual. She wants somebody who'll accept her enthusiasms
as genuine intelligence. You'll find her out intellectually in a week. Then
she wants some one who'll give her his whole attention. You think now that
you will but you won't--you can't--you're not made that way. By temperament
and trade you're an artist. She thinks, at the moment, that an artist would
suit her very well; but, in reality, my boy, he's the very last sort of
person she ought to marry."
Peter caught at Bobby's words. "Do you really think she cares about me?"
"She's interested. Clare spends her days in successive enthusiasms. She's
always being enthusiastic--dreadful disillusions in between the heights.
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