But there was another way in which they had caused her concern. What others might think could not do away with a feeling which in the first instance would hardly be too strongly described as indignation and loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly felt than any association with _her_. True, the question of love on her own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt. The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom the advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt's way of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past, which she resented as if it had been a deliberate offense against her. His advances to _her_ were deliberate, and she felt a retrospective disgust for them. Perhaps other men's lives were of the same kind--full of secrets which made the ignorant suppositions of the women they wanted to marry a farce at which they were laughing in their sleeves.

But this could not do away with her indignation and loathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of past secrets. True, love on her own part had hardly occupied her mind at all in relation to Grandcourt. The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feelings; and to be enamoured was the part of the man. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt's way of being enamoured before she had that glimpse of his past, which made her feel disgust for his addresses. Perhaps other men's lives were also full of secrets, and they were laughing up their sleeves at the ignorance of the women they wanted to marry.
