The Admiral's Daughter by Judith Harkness

strength of harmony and good humor, rather than fierceness. His face was made for laughter, just as his shapely legs in their well-worn Hessians, and the neat waist and shoulders in the heather-brown tweed riding coat, seemed formed for dancing.
    â€œI suppose,” he said, after a moment, “you are acquainted with the story of your cousin’s marriage?”
    Maggie replied that, so far from knowing the story, she had not even known Lord Ramblay was married.
    â€œAh!” The Captain gave her another look, and looked away. “He ain’t married any more. He was, however, for nearly two years—if you call it a marriage where the partners are bound only by vows, and where all the intimacyof thought and feeling which, to my mind, is the very heart and soul of the state, is lacking.”
    â€œI am exactly of your mind!” she exclaimed warmly, pleased beyond everything at this declaration of Morrison’s, which exactly matched her own view. “A husband and wife ought to be as a two-headed beast, each with his own mind and thoughts, which enrich the other’s, but sharing one heart, and one attitude toward the great issues of life. Without such a kind of unity, there is nothing to keep them together but a promise.”
    â€œAnd a promise without any deeper intent is worse than none at all.”
    Again he paused, and again Maggie attempted to draw him out.
    â€œBut were they then so ill-suited to each other? Why marry at all, if there was no love between them?”
    â€œOh, there was love—love enough, at least, on the lady’s part,” replied Captain Morrison cryptically. “ She was born to love. A sweeter, more devoted nature I have never known, nor one with a greater capacity for feeling, though her physical strength was as tiny as a kitten’s.”
    Maggie would liked to have inquired into all the particulars, to have asked the officer what his knowledge was of the match, and what had ensued, for by his look he knew a great deal. But she contented herself by saying, “I suppose it was a marriage of convenience. From what I know of my cousin’s father, he cared nothing for anyone’s feelings, and a more heartless custom than the arrangement of marriages I cannot conceive.”
    Morrison surprised her by saying in reply, “But it was not arranged by the old Viscount. As to convenience, I suppose it was convenient for Ramblay. I cannot conceive why else he might have taken a wife he neither loved nor liked. He treated her as one might treat a rare china vase which one has paid a great deal for, and thereby knows the value of, but which one does not like half so well as the guinea jug by the wash basin. It is kept locked up in a cupboard, along with the family heirlooms, and brought out upon occasion to be showed about to one’s friends. Suddenly, on hearing it admired and coveted, it becomes prettier in the eyes of its owner; but the instant it has ceased to be admired, when the friends go away and no further compliments are heard upon its beauty, it ceasesto be liked again. And so it is stowed away till such a time as its owner may again take satisfaction in knowing he owns it. Such was the kind of convenience Ramblay took from his marriage. But she—ah! She worshiped him, and I cannot believe it was more the coldness she received from him , than a lung fever, which carried her away so soon.”
    They had been standing in the shadow of the tethering wall while they talked, and now the arrival of a team of horses made them move out into the sunlight. It was warm for the time of year, but even as they had been talking the sun had crept lower in the west, and the shadows in the yard had begun to lengthen. Now a chilly breeze sprung up, fluttering the molten cape about Maggie’s shoulders and sweeping her skirt against her legs. She would like to have gone inside, but feared interrupting this narration. Already her interest was so keen