But now—did she know exactly what was the state of the case with regard to Mrs. Glasher and her children? She had given a sort of promise—had said, “I will not interfere with your wishes.” But would another woman who married Grandcourt be in fact the decisive obstacle to her wishes, or be doing her and her boy any real injury? Might it not be just as well, nay better, that Grandcourt should marry? For what could not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert herself? Here all was constructive imagination. Gwendolen had about as accurate a conception of marriage—that is to say, of the mutual influences, demands, duties of man and woman in the state of matrimony—as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms.
“Mamma managed badly,” was her way of summing up what she h
