"I take my chance!"
"No, I give you none! Why do you interfere! A--a girl's policy costs her something if it be worth anything; whatever it costs it is worth it to me. … And I do not love you. In so short a time how could I?"
Then in his arms she fell a-trembling. Something blinded her eyes, and she turned her head sharply, only to encounter his lips on hers in a deep, clinging embrace that left her dazed, still resisting with the fragments of breath and voice.
"Not again--I beg--you. Let me go now. It is not best. Oh! truly, truly it is all wrong with us now." She bent her head, blinded with tears, swaying, stunned; then, with a breathless sound, turned in his arms to meet his lips, her hands contracting in his; and, confronting, they paused, suspending the crisis, young faces close, and hearts afire.
"Sylvia, I love you."
For an instant their lips clung; she had rendered him his kiss. Then, tremblingly, "It is useless … even though I loved you."
"Say it!"
"I do."
"Say it!"
"I--I cannot! … And it is no use--no use! I do not know myself--this way. My eyes--are wet. It is not like me; there is nothing of me in this girl you hold so closely, so confidently. … I do care for you--how can I help it? How could any woman help it? Is not that enough?"
"Until you are a bride, yes."
"A bride? Stephen!--I cannot--"
"You cannot help it, Sylvia."
"I must! I have my way to go."
"My way lies that way."
"No! no! I cannot do it; it is not best for me--not best for you. … I do care for you; you have taught me how to say it. But--you know what I have done--and mean to do, and must carry through. Then, how can you love a girl like that?"
"Dear, I know the woman I love."
"Silly, she is what her life has made her--material, passionately selfish, unable to renounce the root of all evil. … Even if this--this happiness were ours always--I mean, if this madness could last our wedded life--I am not good enough, not noble enough, to forget what I might have had, and put away. … Is it not dreadful to admit it? Do you not know that self-contempt is part of the price? … I have no money. I know what you have. … I asked. And it is enough for a man who remains unmarried. … For I cannot 'make things do'; I cannot 'contrive'; I will not cling to the fringe of things, or play that heartbreaking rôle of the shabby expatriated on the Continent. … No person in this world ever had enough. I tell you I could find use for every flake of metal ever mined! … You see you do not know me. From my pretty face and figure you misjudge me. I am intelligent--not intellectual, though I might have been, might even be yet. I am cultivated, not learned; though I care for learning--or might, if I had time. … My rôle in life is to mount to a security too high for any question as to my dominance. … Can you take me there?"