"
Then she added after a pause:
"I believe you do love me, as much as you possibly could love anything; and
I believe that when you ask me to marry you you are performing the most
generous act you ever have performed in the course of your life, or ever
will; but, at the same time, if I had required your generosity, it would
not have been shown me. If, when I got your letter a month ago, hinting at
your willingness to marry me, I had at once written, imploring you to come,
you would have read the letter. 'Poor little devil!' you would have said,
and tore it up. The next week you would have sailed for Europe, and have
sent me a check for a hundred and fifty pounds (which I would have thrown
in the fire), and I would have heard no more of you."
The stranger smiled.
"But because I declined your proposal, and wrote that in three weeks I
should be married to another, then what you call love woke up. Your man's
love is a child's love for butterflies. You follow till you have the
thing, and break it. If you have broken one wing, and the thing flies
still, then you love it more than ever, and follow till you break both;
then you are satisfied when it lies still on the ground."
"You are profoundly wise in the ways of the world; you have seen far into
life," he said.
He might as well have sneered at the firelight.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315