As for my happiness, I am very happy. Your
offer seems strange to me, for more reasons also than I can say. Of
course you have a perfect right to make it. But I cannot accept it--it
is impossible. Please never speak of this matter again. If you cannot
promise me this, I must ask you not to come back."
"Why is it impossible?" Newman demanded. "You may think it is, at first,
without its really being so. I didn't expect you to be pleased at first,
but I do believe that if you will think of it a good while, you may be
satisfied."
"I don't know you," said Madame de Cintre. "Think how little I know
you."
"Very little, of course, and therefore I don't ask for your ultimatum on
the spot. I only ask you not to say no, and to let me hope. I will wait
as long as you desire. Meanwhile you can see more of me and know me
better, look at me as a possible husband--as a candidate--and make up
your mind."
Something was going on, rapidly, in Madame de Cintre's thoughts; she
was weighing a question there, beneath Newman's eyes, weighing it and
deciding it. "From the moment I don't very respectfully beg you to leave
the house and never return," she said, "I listen to you, I seem to give
you hope. I HAVE listened to you--against my judgment. It is because you
are eloquent. If I had been told this morning that I should consent to
consider you as a possible husband, I should have thought my informant
a little crazy.
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