“Thought!” she interrupted.
“But to get engaged with no immediate prospect of marriage, with all our families and friends grouped about, that doesn’t mean such a lot, does it?”
“It does to me,” she answered almost proudly.
“Now, one of us has to sacrifice something. I want to go on this expedition. I want to succeed. That may be egotism or legitimate ambition. I don’t know, but I want to go. I think I mean to go. Ought I to give it up because you are afraid of your mother?”
“It’s love, not fear, Pete.”
“You love me, too, you say.”
“I feel an obligation to her.”
“And, good Heavens! do you feel none to me?”
“No, no. I love you too much to feel an obligation to you.”
“But you love your mother and feel an obligation to her. Why, Mathilde, that feeling of obligation is love—love in its most serious form. That’s what you don’t feel for me. That’s why you won’t go.”