I love
_you_--not the false, base creature you picture. I admire the way you
love, but I could not love in that way. Thank God, my love, my dear--I
shall never be put to that test. For my love for you is my--my all."
"We are very serious about a mere supposition."
Howard was laughing, but not naturally. "We take each the other far too
seriously. I'm sorry you idealise me so. Who knows--you might find me out
some day--and then--well, don't blame me."
Marian said no more, but late that evening she put her hands on his
shoulders and said: "You're not hiding something from me--something we
ought to bear together?"
"Not I." Howard smiled down into her eyes and kissed her.
His mood of reaction, of hysteria had passed. He was thinking how little in
reality she had had to do with his outburst. He had not been addressing her
at all, except as she seemed to him for the moment the embodiment of his
self-respect--or rather, of an "absurd," "extremely youthful" ideal of
self-respect which he had "outgrown."
XXV.
THE PROMISED LAND.
A woman with a powerful personality may absorb in herself a man of strong
and resolute ambition, may compel him to make her his career, to feel that
to get and to keep her is all that he asks from destiny.
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