"If you think so, you should not tell it again."
"Do not be ill-natured to me. I don't know why it is but a man gets to be ashamed of himself, as though he were doing something mean and paltry, when he loves with persistence, as I do." Had it been possible that she should give him so much encouragement she would have told him that the mean man, and paltry, was he who could love or pretend to love with no capacity for persistency. She could not fail to draw a comparison between him and his brother, in which there was so much of meanness on the part of him who had at one time been as a god to her, and so much nobility in him to whom she was and ever had been as a goddess. "I suppose a man should take an answer and have done with it," he continued. "But how is a man to have done with it, when his heart remains the same?"
"A man should master his heart."
"I am, then, to understand that that which you have said so often before must be said again?" He had never knelt to her, and he did not kneel now; but he leaned over her so that she hardly knew whether he was on his knees or still seated on his chair. And she herself, though she answered him briskly,—almost with impertinence,—was so little mistress of herself that she knew not what she said. She would take him now,—if only she knew how to take him without disgracing herself in her own estimation. "Dear Clary, think of it. Try to love me. I need not tell you again how true is my love for you." He had hold of her hand, and she did not withdraw it, and he ought to have known that the battle was won. But he knew nothing. He hardly knew that her hand was in his. "Clary, you are all the world to me. Must I go back heart-laden, but empty-handed, with no comfort?"
"If you knew all!" she said, rising suddenly from her chair.
"All what?"
"If you knew all, you would not take me though I offered myself." He stood staring at her, not at all comprehending her words, and she perceived in the midst of her distress that it was needful that she should explain herself. "I have loved Ralph always;—yes, your brother."
"And he?"
"I will not accuse him in anything. He is married now, and it is past."
"And you can never love again?"