“As nothing I ever did before,” said she.
“But you know as well as I do, that the hardest thing of all would be for us to be together. We ain’t in any way suitable to each other. You’re too fine and delicate for me.”
“Please don’t say that sort of thing,” cried she. “It isn’t like you—those snobbish ideas.”
A puzzled expression came into his face. Then he smiled slightly. “You misunderstood,” said he. “I didn’t mean exactly that. I meant that you hadn’t been brought up right—according to my notion. So—you’d be miserable as my wife, and a burden on me. Anyhow, it always seemed to me that I wasn’t made to be a married man. The ladies never seemed to care much about me, and I guess that got me into the way of arranging to get along without them.”
As he stood there, rugged and powerful, his sincere face made tragic by the look of lonely melancholy that was habitual to it in repose, she was so moved that she knew she ought not to trust herself to speak. But she did—and her voice was shaking with sobs as she said:
“I know I’m not worthy of you. I’m so poor that I haven’t anything that you need. I’m only fit for a very inferior sort of man. Oh, how vain and silly I’ve been—to imagine I was worth a man’s while.”
“Now, I didn’t mean that—not at all,” cried he. “I don’t know how to talk to women.”
“Indeed you don’t!” retorted she. “You don’t understand them, at all.”
“I see I’ve offended you, Miss Clearwater. I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t call me Miss Clearwater,” cried she desperately. He had not moved, but she had—unconsciously—drawn much nearer to him—almost within his reach. “And don’t—” with a hysterical little laugh—“don’t call me ma’am.”