, my dear Gwendolen, I have nothing further to say than this: you hold
your fortune in your own hands - a fortune such as rarely happens to a girl in
your circumstances - a fortune in fact which almost takes the question out of
the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your acceptance of it a duty. If
Providence offers you power and position - especially when unclogged by any
conditions that are repugnant to you - your course is one of responsibility,
into which caprice must not enter. A man does not like to have his attachment
trifled with: he may not be at once repelled - these things are matters of
individual disposition. But the trifling may be carried too far. And I must
point out to you that in case Mr. Grandcourt were repelled without your having
refused him - without your having intended ultimately to refuse him, your
situation would be a humiliating and painful one. I, for my part, should regard
you with severe disapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own
coquetry and folly.«
    Gwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. The ideas
it raised had the force of sensations. Her resistant courage would not help her
here, because her uncle was not urging her against her own resolve; he was
pressing upon her the motives of dread which she already felt; he was making her
more conscious of the risks that lay within herself. She was silent, and the
Rector observed that he had produced some strong effect.
    »I mean this in kindness, my dear.« His tone had softened.
    »I am aware of that, uncle,« said Gwendolen, rising and shaking her head
back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. »I am not foolish. I know
that I must be married some time - before it is too late. And I don't see how I
could do better than marry Mr. Grandcourt. I mean to accept him, if possible.«
She felt as if she were reinforcing herself by speaking with this decisiveness
to her uncle.
    But the Rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own meaning
from those young lips. He wished that in her mind his advice should be taken in
an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such as are presupposed in the
advice of a clergyman, although he may not consider them always appropriate to
be put forward. He wished his niece parks, carriages, a title - everything that
would make this world a pleasant abode; but he wished her not to be cynical - to
be, on
