‘Oh Tony,’ I said, ‘it’s as if I wanted her to get married to Kurt and spend the rest of her life dowdily waiting on him and being held back by him!’ ‘You want her to be safe,’ Tony said, and that was exactly right: by revealing her true beauty and potential, she was somehow less safe than she had been before. I couldn’t bear the thought of the hopes and possibilities that might come from this revelation, and what their crushing might do to her. Safer to go around in a Mother Hubbard, not risking anything!
