Besides, it seems to me that in India a
girl cannot feel that she is chosen, as it were, from among other
girls, as she would do at home. There are so few girls, and so
many men here, there must be a sort of feeling that you are only
appreciated because there is nothing better to be had.
"But, of course, uncle, you can understand that the idea of love
making and marrying never entered my head at all until I went on
board a ship. As you know, I always used to think that Robert and
I would live together, and I am quite sure that I should never have
left him if he had lived. If I had stopped in England I should have
done the work I had trained myself to do, and it might have been
years and years, and perhaps never, before anyone might have taken
a fancy to me, or I to him. It seems strange, and I really don't
think pleasant, uncle, for everyone to take it for granted that
because a girl comes out to India she is a candidate for marriage.
I think it is degrading, uncle."
"The Doctor was telling me yesterday that you had some idea of
that sort," the Major said, with a slight smile, "and I think girls
often start with that sort of idea. But it is like looking on at
a game. You don't feel interested in it until you begin to play at
it. Well, the longer you entertain those ideas the better I shall
be pleased, Isobel. I only hope that you may long remain of the
same mind, and that when your time does come your choice will be
a wise one.
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