I appreciate all you say; you do me great honor. But I have
decided not to marry."
"Oh, don't say that!" cried Newman, in a tone absolutely naif from its
pleading and caressing cadence. She had turned away, and it made her
stop a moment with her back to him. "Think better of that. You are
too young, too beautiful, too much made to be happy and to make others
happy. If you are afraid of losing your freedom, I can assure you that
this freedom here, this life you now lead, is a dreary bondage to what
I will offer you. You shall do things that I don't think you have ever
thought of. I will take you anywhere in the wide world that you propose.
Are you unhappy? You give me a feeling that you are unhappy. You have no
right to be, or to be made so. Let me come in and put an end to it."
Madame de Cintre stood there a moment longer, looking away from him.
If she was touched by the way he spoke, the thing was conceivable. His
voice, always very mild and interrogative, gradually became as soft
and as tenderly argumentative as if he had been talking to a much-loved
child. He stood watching her, and she presently turned round again, but
this time she did not look at him, and she spoke in a quietness in which
there was a visible trace of effort.
"There are a great many reasons why I should not marry," she said, "more
than I can explain to you.
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