"That requires elucidation, my dearest," said Kingsley, with great tenderness.
"Think of the sacrifice you have made for me, a poor girl, but for whom you would be now at peace with your parents, and in the enjoyment of much, if not of all, that makes life worth living. How low should I fall in your estimation if I were insensible to that sacrifice, if I were to undervalue it, if I were to say: 'It is what any other man in Kingsley's place would have done!'"
"Is it not?" he asked, passing his hand fondly over her hair.
"No, indeed and indeed it is not. I do not pretend to assert that I know the world as you know it"--there was something whimsical in the expression of unconsciously affected wisdom which stole into Kingsley's face as she uttered these words--"but I know it sufficiently well to be certain that there are few men capable of a sacrifice such as you have made for me. What had I to give in return?"
"Love," he answered.
"It is yours," she said, and tears, in which there was no unhappiness, stole into her eyes, "love as perfect as woman ever gave to man. Not love for to-day, my dearest, but love forever; love which nothing can weaken; love which will triumph over every adversity; love which will be proof against any trial. But that is little."
"It is everything," said Kingsley, "to me and to every man worthy of the name. The sacrifice I have made--you choose to call it so, and I will not contradict you, dear--is to be measured. Not so with love. It is illimitable, unmeasurable. It illumines every surrounding object; it makes the commonest things precious. How beautiful the present is to you and to me! Could it be more beautiful if we were passing it in a palace? That picture on the wall--a common print? No. A lovely possession. The handsomest painting that ever was painted hanging there--would it make the present moments sweeter, would it invest the spiritual bond which unites us with a binding link which now is missing? This book on the table which cost a shilling--if it were a first edition worth thousands of pounds, would it increase our happiness, would it make your love for me and mine for you more perfect and complete? There is an immeasurable distance between what I have gained and what I have lost. So let us have no more talk of sacrifices, Nansie, dear."
She could not find arguments with which to answer him, and it would have been strange if she had needed them.
"In return," he continued, "I will make the strongest endeavor not to underrate myself, nor to prove that I am more than ordinarily selfish. There--my cigar is out."
She lit a match and held it while he puffed away at his weed.