It was the rejected lover, _Mortimer Jerrold_, who conceived two bright
ideas for conquering her independence of mind, apparently for the
benefit of his rival. First he contrived to get _Harold Glaive_, the
young socialist, selected as a candidate for Parliament, hoping (if I
read the gentleman's motive rightly) that his probable failure would
touch the place where her heart should have been. This scheme did not go
very well, for he was chosen to contest the seat held by _Dahlia's_ own
father (which caused a lot of trouble), and in the result beat him.
Meanwhile _Jerrold_ had had an alternative brain-wave. He thought that
if he pinched the latchkey of _Dahlia's_ Bloomsbury flat, broke in at
night, and made a show of assaulting her modesty he could prove to her
that she was only a poor weak woman after all. Nothing, you would say,
could well have been more stupid. Yet, according to Mr. HASTINGS
TURNER'S showing (and who were we to challenge his authority?) it came
off. We were, in fact, asked to believe that a girl who had protested
her freedom from all sense of sex was suddenly made conscious of it by
the violence of a man whose advances, when decently conducted, had left
her cold; and from that moment developed an inclination to marry him.
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