"
"I tell you that marriage has nothing to do with all this!" He began
walking again, to keep his temper hot, for he was dimly conscious that
he was getting the worst of the encounter, and that her arguments were
good.
"And I tell you that a marriage that has nothing to do with love, and
with honour, and with trust, is no marriage at all!" answered the girl.
"Say what you please of customs, and traditions, and of station, and all
that! God never meant that an innocent girl should be bought and sold
like a slave, or a horse, for a name, nor for money, nor for any
imaginary advantage to herself or to her father! I know what our
privilege is, that the patricians may marry us and not lose their rank.
I would rather keep my own, and marry a glass-worker, even if I were to
be sold! Do you know what your money would buy for me in Venice? The
privilege of being despised and slighted by patricians and great ladies.
You know as well as I that it would all end there, in spite of all you
may give. They want your money, you want their name, because you are
rich and you have always been taught to think that the chief use of
money is to rise in the world."
"Will you teach me what I am to think?" asked old Beroviero, amazed by
her sudden flow of words.
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