"Yet I do."
"And when I was describing her—"
"It was as if I saw her before me."
"I am sorry I said anything about a friend of yours, sir. I had supposed she was quite a stranger to you."
"Sometimes it seems to me, too, as if she were a stranger," Crane answered. "Each time I see her, Jane-Ellen, she seems to me so lovely and wonderful and miraculous that it is as if I saw her for the first time. Sometimes when I am away from her it seems to me quite ridiculous to believe that such a creature exists in this rather tiresome old world, and I feel like rushing back from wherever I am to assure myself that she isn't just a creation of my own passionate desire. In this sense, I think she will always be a stranger, always be a surprise to me even if I should have the great felicity of spending the rest of my days with her. Does it bore you, Jane-Ellen, to hear me talking this way about my own feelings?"
Jane-Ellen did not answer; indeed something seemed to suggest that she could not speak, but she shook her head and Burton went on.
"So you see why it distressed me to hear from so good an authority as yourself that she had already engaged herself three times. It is not that I am of a jealous nature, Jane-Ellen, but when I ask her to be my wife, if she should say yes, I should want to feel sure that that meant—"
"Oh, Mr. Crane!" said Jane-Ellen, "I said that to make Mr. Reed angry."
"And there was no truth in it?"
There was a pause. Jane-Ellen looked down and wriggled her shoulders a little.