"Forget you?"
"Oh! yes, it's not as if you really cared for me; you wouldn't talk to me of money if you did. But I suppose you've known so many. . . . Val warned me long ago that you had not a good name with women."
"Val said that? Val!"
"And now you're angry with Val; I repeat what I oughtn't to repeat, and make mischief. Lawrence, this isn't Val's doing; it isn't even Mrs. Cleve's: it's my own cowardice. I daren't marry you."
"But why not?"
"You're not trying to be good."
"The language of the nursery defeats me, Isabel."
She flushed. "That means I've hurt you."
"Naturally."
"I can't help it." That was truer than he realized, for she could hardly help crying. She could not soften her refusal, because she was so shaken and exhausted by the strain of it that she dared not venture on more than one sentence at a time.