"There's no reason. I—just don't. I've sometimes thought perhaps it was because you don't love me."
"Good God, Dorothy! What do you want me to say or do?"
"Nothing," replied she calmly. "You asked me why I didn't love you, and I was trying to explain. I don't want anything more than I'm getting. I am content—aren't you?"
"Content!" He laughed sardonically. "As well ask Tantalus if he is content, with the water always before his eyes and always out of reach. I want you—all you have to give. I couldn't be content with less."
"You ought not to talk to me this way," she reproved gently, "when you are engaged."
He flung her hand into her lap. "You are making a fool of me. And I don't wonder. I've invited it. Surely, never since man was created has there been such another ass as I." He drew her to her feet, seized her roughly by the shoulders. "When are you coming to your senses?" he demanded.
"What do you mean?" she inquired, in her childlike puzzled way.
He shook her, kissed her violently, held her at arm's length. "Do you think it wise to trifle with me?" he asked. "Don't your good sense tell you there's a limit even to such folly as mine?"
"What is the matter?" she asked pathetically. "What do you want? I can't give you what I haven't got to give."
"No," he cried. "But I want what you have got to give."