"We've both got to fall in love and marry," said he. "Not with each other, of course—for we're not in any way mated. But love and marriage and the rest of it—that's the solution. I don't need it quite as much as you do, for I've got my work. But I need it. Now that I see things in the right light I wonder that I've been so stupidly blind. Why do we human beings always overlook the obvious?"
"It isn't easy to marry," said Jane, rather drearily. "It isn't easy to find some one with whom one would be willing to pass one's life. I've had several chances—one or two of them not entirely mercenary, I think. But not one that I could bring myself to accept."
"Vanity—vanity," said Victor. "Almost any human being is interesting and attractive if one will stop thinking about oneself and concentrate on him or her."
She smiled. "It's evident you've never tried to fall in love."
"The nearest I ever came to it was with you," replied he. "But that was, of course, out of the question."
"I don't admit that," said she, with an amusing kind of timid obstinacy.
"Let's be honest and natural with each other," urged he. "Now, Jane, admit that in your heart of hearts you feel you ought not to marry me."
Her glance avoided his.
"Come—own up!" cried he.
"I have thought of that side of it," she conceded.