He seized her hand tightly.
"You fool! You fool!" he cried—"to make yourself hard and unfeeling and unnatural—to try to stamp all the heart out of your life—to blaspheme your sex. Don't you know that a hard woman is the most terrible thing in the world? Don't you know that while men dare to think that they have the image of God, it is women who can really have the heart of God? And to think that all the time you have disguised yourself, you have been capable of looking like that."
"I have been up against the world," she said. "I have never had enough money to be soft-hearted. No woman with feeling can get five hundred per cent. out of her income."
"What does it matter," he returned, "if she can get five hundred per cent. out of life?"
He still held her hand, his eyes fixed longingly on her face.
"If only I were not mad," he said, with all his sadness—"now I know that you are really a woman...."
"Let me go," she said brokenly, withdrawing her hand from his.
"Not yet," he returned, detaining her. "There is something more I want to do." He paused. "My dear," he said softly, "an hour ago I would not have married you even if I had been sane. Now I want to marry you although I am mad. But, since that cannot be, there is something else." He released her, and stood up. "I want you always to look like that," he said. "I want you to forget that you have ever tried to disguise yourself. I want to make it possible for you to go through the rest of your life with your heart in its proper place."
He took his check book from his pocket.
"No, no," she said quickly—"not that."