"
"But failure might come."
"It couldn't. We wouldn't work for fame or for riches or for any outside
thing. We would work to make ourselves wiser and better and more worthy
each of the other and both of our great love."
Again they were walking in silence.
"I am so sad," Marian said at last. "But I am so happy too. What has come
over me? But--you will work on, won't you? And you will accomplish
everything. Yes, I am sure you will."
"Oh, I'll work--in my own way. And I'll get a good deal of what I want. But
not everything. You say you can't understand yourself. No more can I
understand myself. I thought my purpose fixed. I knew that I had nothing to
do with marrying and giving in marriage, so I kept away from danger. And
here, as miraculously as if a thunderbolt had dropped from this open winter
sky, here is--you."
They were in the Avenue again--"the awakening," Howard said as the flood of
carriages rolled about them.
"You will win," she repeated, when they were almost at Forty-seventh
Street. "You will be famous."
"Probably not. The price for fame may be too big."
"The price? But you are willing to work?"
"Work--yes. But not to lie, not to cheat, not to exchange self-respect for
self-contempt--at least, I think, I hope not.
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