"Of course it must be very different,—and it should be different. You have only known me a few months."
"I have known you enough to wish to know you more closely than anybody else for the rest of my life."
"Mr. Newton, I thought you had understood me before."
"So I did." This he said with an assumed tone of lachrymose complaint. "I did understand you,—thoroughly. I understood that I was rebuked, and rejected, and disdained. But a man, if he is in earnest, does not give over on that account. Indeed, there are things which he can't give over. You may tell a man that he shouldn't drink, or shouldn't gamble; but telling will do no good. When he has once begun, he'll go on with it."
"What does that mean?"
"That love is as strong a passion, at any rate, as drinking or gambling. You did tell me, and sent me away, and rebuked me because of that tradesman's daughter."
"What tradesman's daughter?" asked Mary. "I have spoken of no tradesman's daughter. I gave you ample reason why you should not address yourself to me."
"Of course there are ample reasons," said Ralph, looking into his hat, which he had taken from the table. "The one,—most ample of all, is that you do not care for me."
"I do not," said Mary resolutely.
"Exactly;—but that is a sort of reason which a man will do his best to conquer. Do not misunderstand me. I am not such a fool as to think that I can prevail in a day. I am not vain enough to think that I can prevail at all. But I can persist."