"I can; I do," murmurs she, but so weakly that her voice can scarcely be heard.
"Is that the truth, Bebe?" says Chandos, more quietly. "Is pride to come between us now? Darling, listen to me. If you for one moment imagine I think badly of you because you refused to marry a poor man, you wrong me. I think you acted rightly. Even as I asked you that day I felt myself a coward in doing so. Was it honorable of me to seek to drag you down from all the luxuries and enjoyments to which you had been accustomed, to such a life as it was only in my power to offer? Had your answer been different, do you believe we would have been happy? I do not."
"You strike at the very root of all romance," protests Bebe, with a rather sad smile.
"I decline to countenance a great deal of rubbish," returns he vigorously. "Poverty is the surest foe that love can have, I stoutly maintain, in spite of all the poets that ever wrote. But now that it no longer stands in the way, Bebe, be my wife, and let us forget the past."
"Do you think we should either of us ever forget it?" demands she, raising a small white mournful face to his. "Do you not see how it would come between us every hour of our lives? Even supposing what you say to be true, that I love you, it would be all the greater reason why I should now refuse to be persuaded into doing as you wish. Could I bear to know, day by, that my husband thought me mercenary?"
"Mercenary! I shall never think you that. How could I? How could any man blame you for shrinking from such a selfish proposal as mine? I tell you again I think you behaved rightly in the matter."
"Very rightly, no doubt, and very wisely, and very, prudently—for myself," replies Bebe, in a cold, bitter way "Why seek to disguise the truth? If it be true what you have supposed, that I returned your affection, I only proved myself one of those who fear to endure even the smallest privation for the sake of him they love; and what a love that must be!" She laughs contemptuously. "I fear, Lord Chandos, I am not of the stuff of which heroines are made."
"If, as you hint, I am wrong," exclaims Chandos, eagerly catching at a last chance, "if all along I have been deceiving myself in the belief that you cared for me, let me begin again now, and at least try to obtain your affection. If, when—-"
"Enough has been said," interrupts she, icily—"too much. Let my hand go, Lord Chandos. I want to find Mrs. Carrington."
(Mrs. Carrington is almost on the verge of lunacy by this time between fright and disappointment.)