"Don't say those things," he protested angrily. "You don't mean them, and they sound horrible."
She looked at him satirically. "You men!" she mocked. "You men, with your coarse, narrow ideas of us women that encourage all that is least self-respecting in us! I do not attach the same importance to the physical side of myself that you do. I try to flatter myself there is more to me than merely my sex. I admit, nature intended only that. But we are trying to improve on nature."
"I suppose you think you have made me ashamed because I am still in a state of nature," he rejoined. "But you haven't. No matter what any man may pretend, he will care for you in the natural way as long as you look as you do." And his glance swept her in bold admiration. "As I said a while ago, I'm not jealous of Raphael. I'm jealous of all men. Sometimes I get to thinking about you—that you are somewhere—with some man, several men—their heads full of the ideas that steam in my head whenever I look at you—and I walk the floor and grind my teeth in fury."
The color was in her cheeks, though her eyes were mocking. "Go on," she said. "This is interesting."
"Yes—it must be interesting, and amusing, in view of the way I used to act. But that was your fault. You hid yourself from me then. You cheated me. You let me make a fool of myself, and throw away the best there was in my life."
"You forget your career," said she. "You aren't a human being. You are a career."
"I suppose you—a woman—would prefer an obscurity, a nobody, provided he were a sentimental, Harry-hug-the-hearth."
"I think so," she said. "A nobody with a heart rather than the greatest somebody on earth without one. Heart is so much the most important thing in the world. You'll find that out some day, when you're not so strong and self-reliant and successful."
"I have found it out," replied he. "And that is why I ask you to marry me."
"Ask me to become an incident in your career."