“You’re a rotter to come back like this,” she said hotly, “just when I was beginning to be happy. When you speak of marriage, you don’t know what you’re saying. You spoilt all that for me years ago at Venice. D’you think I’ll ever believe again in the honor and goodness of a man? You’ve come too late. Five years changes people. I’m a different woman now—not at all what you imagine.”
“You can be any kind of woman you choose, but you’re the woman I’m going to marry.”
“Then you haven’t heard what people say about me?”
“And I don’t care.”
“They say I’ve had lovers.”
“I don’t believe them.”
“What if I should tell you that I have?”
“I shouldn’t believe you.”
“You’d prefer to think that I’d lied to you rather than that I’d told you the truth?”
“It would make no difference. You’ve always loved me. You love me now. I know that you are pure.”