Macleod of Dare, page 139 by William Black
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rd, I see nothing but a maze of impossibilities and trouble. One might as well have fallen in love with one of the Roman maidens in the Temple of Vesta. She is a white slave. She is a sacrifice to the monstrous theories of that bloodless old pagan, her father. And then she is courted and flattered on all sides; she lives in a smoke of incense: do you think, even supposing that all other difficulties were removed--that she cared for no one else, that she were to care for me, that the influence of her father was gone--do you think she would surrender all the admiration she provokes and the excitement of the life she leads, to come and live in a dungeon in the Highlands? A single day like to-day would kill her, she is so fine and delicate--like a rose leaf, I have often thought. No, no, Ogilvie, I have thought of it every way. It is like a riddle that you twist and twist about to try and get the answer; and I can get no answer at all, unless wishing that I had never been born. And perhaps that would have been better."
"You take too gloomy a view of it, Macleod," said Ogilvie. "For one thing, look at the common-sense of the matter. Suppose that she is very ambitious to succeed in her profession, that is all very well; but, mind you, it is a very hard life. And if you put before her the chance of being styled Lady Macleod--well, I may be wrong, but I should say that would count for something. I haven't known many actresses myself--"
"That is idle talk," Macleod said; and then he added, proudly, "You do not know this woman as I know her."
He put aside his pipe; but in truth he had never lit it.
"Come," said he, with a tired look, "I have bored you enough. You won't mind, Ogilvie? The whole of the day I was saying to myself that I would keep all this thing to myself, if my heart burst over it; but you see I could not do it, and I have made you the victim, after all. And we will go into the drawing-room now; and we will have a song. And that was a very good song you sang one night in London, O