"And you think it would come afterward.
That is an exploded idea, my friend. I should feel as
if I were acting out an old-fashioned novel--an
old-fashioned _second-rate_ novel."
She looked at him with eyes that invited him to share
their laughter, but the smile he gave her was pitiful,
if she could have known it. The strain she had bee putting
upon him, and promised indefinitely to put upon him, was
growing greater than he could bear.
"I am afraid I most ask you to decide," he said. "You
have been telling me two things, dear. One thing with
your lips and another thing with your eyes--and ways of
doing. You tell me that I, must go, but you make it
possible for me to stay. For God's sake let it be one or
the other."
"I am so sorry. We could be friends of a sort, I think,
but I can't marry you."
"You have never told me why."
"Shall I tell you truly, literally--brutally?"
"Of course!"
"Then it is not only because I don't love you--that there
is not for me the common temptation to enter a form of
bondage which, as I see it, is hateful. That is enough,
but it is not all; it is not even the principal thing.
It is"--she hesitated--"it is that--that we are different,
you and I.
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