The Water lily Pond

The Water lily Pond
Venus and Cupid
Vermeer girl with the pearl earring
virgin of the rocks
Woman with a Parasol
¡¡¡¡ "You have no right to ask me such a question; and I shan't answer!" she said, smiling. ¡¡¡¡ "My dear one, your happiness is more to me than anything--although we seem to verge on quarrelling so often!--and your will is law to me. I am something more than a mere--selfish fellow, I hope. Have it as you wish!" On reflection his brow showed perplexity. "But perhaps it is that you don't love me--not that you have become conventional! Much as, under your teaching, I hate convention, I hope it IS that, not the other terrible alternative!" ¡¡¡¡ Even at this obvious moment for candour Sue could not be quite candid as to the state of that mystery, her heart. "Put it down to my timidity," she said with hurried evasiveness; "to a woman's natural timidity when the crisis comes. I may feel as well as you that I have a perfect right to live with you as you thought--from this moment. I may hold the opinion that, in a proper state of society, the father of a woman's child will be as much a private matter of hers as the cut of her underlinen, on whom nobody will have any right to question her. But partly, perhaps, because it is by his generosity that I am now free, I would rather not be other than a little rigid. If there had been a rope-ladder, and he had run after us with pistols, it would have seemed different, and I may have acted otherwise. But don't press me and criticize me, Jude! Assume that I haven't the courage of my opinions. I know I am a poor miserable creature. My nature is not so passionate as yours!"