He smiled with a kind of grim humor. “I don’t see that it matters what I call you,” said he, “as long as I can’t call you mine.”
She trembled. “Oh, won’t you understand?” cried she. And she looked at him with eyes shining with passion.
He shook his head slowly. “Well—I must be going.” With a sudden change to a look of terrific power. “If I stay here a minute longer, I’ll not be able to keep my hands off you. I love you, Ellen—and it’s stronger than I am.”
“Why should you go?” said she, boldly. Her glowing heart told her it was no time for trifling, for maidenly pretense of coyness. That sort of game was all very well, with men who understood it—and men one didn’t especially care about. But this man didn’t understand it—and he was tremendously worth-while. Plain speaking, or he would be lost forever. She did not see how she was to marry him; but to lose him—that would be frightful. “Why should you go?” she said boldly. “Don’t you want me, George?”
He put his hands behind his back. He grew pale; his eyes seemed deeper set than ever.
“No man ever made me feel, but you,” she went on. “I belong to you. If you cast me off——”
He had her in his arms—not because of what she had said but because he could withstand no longer. “I’ve gone crazy again,” he said, as he kissed her—as she kissed him—“but you know as well as I do that we can’t be anything to each other.”
“Don’t think of that,” pleaded she. “Let’s be happy while we can—and let’s hope.”
“There’s nothing to hope for,” said he, drawing away from her. “I’m ashamed of myself. I love you, but it isn’t the kind of love a man gives a woman that he wants to live his life with.”
“Take me, George,” said she. “I’ll be what you want. You can teach me. I’ll learn. Don’t shut affection and love out of your life. You can’t be half the man without them that you’ll be with them. Oh, you don’t understand women. You don’t know what women are for—what a woman is for—what your woman is for in your life.”