Then she sat herself down to think,--to think especially about the cruelty of husbands. She had been told over and over again, in the days before her marriage, that Burgo would ill-use her if he became her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest that Burgo might probably beat her. But what hard treatment, even what beating, could be so unendurable as this total want of sympathy, as this deadness in life, which her present lot entailed upon her? As for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea in her very soul. She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo's eyes, of the softness of his touch, of the loving, almost worshipping, tones of his voice. Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o'clock at night by such a husband as Plantagenet Palliser? The British Constitution, indeed! Had she married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy, and he would have told her some other tale than that as they sat together under the pale moonlight. She had a little water-coloured drawing called Raphael and Fornarina, and she was infantine enough to tell herself that the so-called Raphael was like her Burgo--no, not her Burgo, but the Burgo that was not hers. 
Then she sat down to think about the cruelty of husbands. She had been told in the days before her marriage that Burgo would ill-use her if he became her husband. The Marquis of Auld Reekie had gone so far as to suggest that Burgo might beat her. But what hard treatment could be so unendurable as this total lack of sympathy on her husband's part? As for that matter of beating, she ridiculed the idea. She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo's eyes, of the softness of his touch, of his loving voice. Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o'clock at night by Plantagenet Palliser? The British Constitution, indeed!
If she had married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy, sitting together under the pale moonlight. 