human
Dear little Con, dear little Con, he said,
gpt
I'm awfully sorry you should be worried, but I'm afraid we've got to look facts in the face. And it's no kindness for me to lie to you about these matters. I don't pretend to say what's right or what's wrong; I only say what it is. We can't make society, and the ways of it, all over again even to save Kathleen a heartache. I don't want to seem a brute, but she must just take her chance along with the rest of you. Marriage always has been a confounded uncertain business, and will always remain so, I suppose. The sort of remedies excited persons suggest to mitigate the dangers of it are a good deal worse than the disease, in my opinion. Every woman has to take her chance. Every man has to take his, too, you know--and the chance strikes some of us as such an uncommonly poor one, that, upon my honour, it seems safest to wash one's hands of it altogether.
human
But you're not unhappy, Shotover, dear? You're not lonely?
gpt
Abominably so sometimes, Con. But I manage, oh! I manage. I have my consolations --he smiled at her, perhaps a trifle shamefacedly.
human
But now about Kathleen, he went on,
gpt
Oh! but then, she said,
human
Was it, my dear, was it?--I wonder,