It's not too much! But all the same Cosette is glad Mary isn't laughing more than she is -- it is funny, but she feels a little uncertain if she should have said it now, so she's glad Mary's not mocking too much.
"I don't know," she confesses. It's the kind of admission that would ordinarily make her feel very young; all right, good girls don't know very much about men if they don't have brothers, usually, but she knows so very little about so much of the world, and besides that she's a married woman and ought to be utterly grown up now. And yet.
"I don't really know very much of what men learn. And I don't know a thing at all about what kings and princes and very grand folk do."
Mary is her dear friend, and her husband doesn't want to be a king at Milliways, but all the same she can't imagine what it would be like to grow up a little prince in a huge Scottish castle.
"My Marius, you know, he's shy like I say, he barely brought himself to speak to me for ever so long. But then he gave me the loveliest letter. It was all full of his thoughts. Not even a proper letter, only an outpouring, all sorts of lovely deep thoughts, it was beautiful. That was when I first loved him, I think -- really and truly him, not just the handsome man in the park with his soul in his eyes. Perhaps it's only that your James doesn't know how to say what he really means? Perhaps he never learned to talk to women, or perhaps he's only very slow to relax."
It would be too awful if they couldn't learn to truly love each other. So it must be so; it must be that James is only awkward, only shy, only needs to figure out how to show what's in his heart.
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"I don't know," she confesses. It's the kind of admission that would ordinarily make her feel very young; all right, good girls don't know very much about men if they don't have brothers, usually, but she knows so very little about so much of the world, and besides that she's a married woman and ought to be utterly grown up now. And yet.
"I don't really know very much of what men learn. And I don't know a thing at all about what kings and princes and very grand folk do."
Mary is her dear friend, and her husband doesn't want to be a king at Milliways, but all the same she can't imagine what it would be like to grow up a little prince in a huge Scottish castle.
"My Marius, you know, he's shy like I say, he barely brought himself to speak to me for ever so long. But then he gave me the loveliest letter. It was all full of his thoughts. Not even a proper letter, only an outpouring, all sorts of lovely deep thoughts, it was beautiful. That was when I first loved him, I think -- really and truly him, not just the handsome man in the park with his soul in his eyes. Perhaps it's only that your James doesn't know how to say what he really means? Perhaps he never learned to talk to women, or perhaps he's only very slow to relax."
It would be too awful if they couldn't learn to truly love each other. So it must be so; it must be that James is only awkward, only shy, only needs to figure out how to show what's in his heart.