Your weakness, which well merits another name, is without excuse.

You should have resisted; you should have stood your ground firmly.

Antoinette, although she is of age, never in the world would have decided to address to you a formal request of consent to this marriage.

She would have made some scenes; she would have pouted; she would have endeavoured to soften you by assuming the airs of a tearful, heart-broken widow; she would have draped herself in black crape.

And after that?
Desperate case! These Artemisias are very tiresome, I admit; but one can accustom one's self to anything.