Perhaps, said Grizel to herself, I should have been a man.
If this was the true explanation, then, though Tommy, who had tried so hard, could not love her, he might be able to love--what is the phrase ?--a more womanly woman, or, more popular phrase still, a very woman.

Some other woman might be the right wife for him.

She did not shrink from considering this theory, and she considered so long that I, for one, cannot smile at her for deciding ultimately, as she did, that there was nothing in it.
The strong like to be leaned upon and the weak to lean, and this irrespective of sex.

This was the solution she woke up with one morning, and it seemed to explain not only David's and Elspeth's love, but her own, so clearly that in her desire to help she put it before Tommy.

It implied that she cared for him because he was weak, and he drew a very long face.
"You don't know how the feathers hurt as they come out," he explained.
"But so long as we do get them out!" she said.
"Every other person who knows me thinks that strength is my great characteristic," he maintained, rather querulously.
"But when you know it is not," said Grizel.