“As for me, I am not even remembered. Well, I'll bear even that, if I can be sure of a little sympathy in another quarter.”
“Master Jack, you ask for too many professions. I have told you already to-day, and I don't mean to repeat it for a week, that you are not odious to me.”
“But will you not remember, Julia, the long months of banishment I have suffered? Will you not bear in mind that if I have lived longingly for this moment, it is cruel now to dash it with a doubt.”
“But it is exactly what I am not doing! I have given you fully as much encouragement as is good for you. I have owned—and it is a rash confession for a girl to make at any time—that I care for you more than any part of our prospects for the future could warrant, and if I go one step further there will be nothing for it but for you to buy a bragotza and turn fisherman, and for me to get a basket and sell pilchards in the piazza.”
“You need n't taunt me with my poverty, I feel it bitterly enough already. Nor have you any right to think me unable to win a living.”
“There, again, you wrong me. I only said, Do not, in your impatience to reach your goal, make it not worth the winning. Don't forget what I told you about long engagements. A man's share of them is the worst.”
“But you love me, Julia?” said he, drawing her close to him.
“How tiresome you are!” said she, trying to free herself from his arm.
“Let me once—only once—hear you say this, and I swear to you, Julia, I 'll never tease you more.”
“Well, then if I must—”