“You are—fresh air?” she inquired, with laughing sarcasm.
“I am that,” retorted I. “And good for you—as you'll find when you get used to me.”
I heard voices in the next room—her mother's and some man's. We waited until it was evident we were not to be disturbed. As I realized that fact and surmised its meaning, I looked triumphantly at her. She drew further back into her corner, and the almost stern firmness of her contour told me she had set her teeth.
“I see you are nerving yourself,” said I with a laugh. “You are perfectly certain I am going to propose to you.”
She flamed scarlet and half-started up.
“Your mother—in the next room—expects it, too,” I went on, laughing even more disagreeably. “Your parents need money—they have decided to sell you, their only large income-producing asset. And I am willing to buy. What do you say?”
I was blocking her way out of the room. She was standing, her breath coming fast, her eyes blazing. “You are—frightful!” she exclaimed in a low voice.
“Because I am frank, because I am honest? Because I want to put things on a sound basis? I suppose, if I came lying and pretending, and let you lie and pretend, and let your parents and Sam lie and pretend, you would find me—almost tolerable. Well, I'm not that kind. When there's no especial reason one way or the other, I'm willing to smirk and grimace and dodder and drivel, like the rest of your friends, those ladies and gentlemen. But when there's business to be transacted, I am business-like. Let's not begin with your thinking you are deceiving me, and so hating me and despising me and trying to keep up the deception. Let's begin right.”
She was listening; she was no longer longing to fly from the room; she was curious. I knew I had scored.
“In any event,” I continued, “you would have married for money. You've been brought up to it, like all these girls of your set. You'd be miserable without luxury. If you had your choice between love without luxury and luxury without love, it'd be as easy to foretell which you'd do as to foretell how a starving poet would choose between a loaf of bread and a volume of poems. You may love love; but you love life—your kind of life—better!”