"Did Andromeda not love Perseus, think you?" she asked lightly, recovering her smile, albeit her eyes were dewy.
"I am dull, then," he confessed. "I certainly do not understand."
"You came to me as a god when you saved me. Shall you come to me as less by an inch when you stoop to love me?"
"Ah!" he said, as if at length he comprehended; "I was drunk last night, and you must have time to get that image out of your mind."
She shook her head slowly. "You did not ask me last night to marry you. I shall always, I think, be able to separate an unworthy image of you, and forget it."
"Then you must mean that I am yet unworthy."
"My dear lord," she said after a moment or two, in which she seemed to consider how best to make it plain to him, "you asked me just now to marry you, but not because you knew me to be worthy; and though you may command what you choose, and I can deny you nothing, I would not willingly be your wife for a smaller reason. Nor did you ask me in the strength of your will, your passion even, but in their weakness. Am I not right?"
He was dumb.
"And is it thus," she went on, "that the great ones love and beget noble children?"
"I see," he said at length, and very slowly. "It means that I must very humbly become your wooer."