“Courage to ask pardon! what do you mean by that?”
“No; but courage to make me hope you care to hear it. Oh, Julia, for once listen to me seriously, and let me tell you how I love you; how I have always loved you; how you are to me all that is worth living for.”
“It would be very nice to be told such pretty things, all the more being bound to believe them.”
“And do you doubt?”
“I 'll tell you what there is not, nor can be any doubt about, Jack; that we are both very poor, and though I, woman-like, may feel it a very comforting and sustaining thought, through my poverty, that one honest heart beats affectionately for me, yet I 'm far from sure that it would be the same good influence over your life; in fact, our bargain would be unequal, and I should have all the best of it.”
“Oh, Julia, could you love me—”
“I think I 've done things fully as hard,” said she, with affected thoughtfulness.
“Do you think me, then, so hopeless of advancement in life that I shall live and die the humble creature you now see me?”
“No, I don't think that. I think if fate is not very dead against you, you are likely, whatever you turn to, or wherever you go, to make your way; but to do this you must be heart-whole. The selfishness that men call ambition cannot afford to be weighted with thought of another and another's welfare. Have a little patience with me—hear me out, for I am saying what I have thought over many and many an hour—what I have already told Nelly. There's an old Persian fable that says, the people who love on through life are like two lovers who walk on opposite banks of a river, and never meet till the river mingles with the ocean, which is eternity, and then they are parted no more. Are you satisfied with this? I thought not. Well, what are your plans for the future?”
“I have scores of them. If I would take service with any of those South American republics, there is not one would not give me rank and station to-morrow. Brazil would take me. If I offered myself to the Sultan's Government, where I am known, I could have a command at once.”