'It means that this seems the most terrible thing that could have happened to me. That it should be through me that you give up the right.'
'But through you, for you, I will become anything you choose.'
'And that is the worst of all,' she said, with very real distress. 'I can ask you to do nothing for my sake.'
'You cannot love me, then?' he asked, as earnestly as though his happiness hung on her answer.
'No,' she said steadily, 'I cannot love you. I am very, very sorry—'
'Spare me your pity, at least,' he said. 'But one thing I must ask. Why did you let me see you again after New Year's Day? For I told you the same thing then, and you knew then that I loved you.'
It was true—but Clare hated him for saying it.
'I have changed so much since then,' she said slowly.
Several things both bitter and true rose to his lips. He did not give them voice, however. He had never in his life said an unkind thing to a woman. It occurred to him that he was accepting his defeat rather easily, and he looked at her to measure the chances for and against the possible success of another appeal. But in her face was a decision against which he knew there could be no appeal. He felt angry with her for refusing him—angry and unreasonably surprised; and then, in one of the flashes of light that made it so hard for him to understand himself, he saw that if she was to blame for refusing his love, he was ten thousand times more to blame for having sought hers, and this truth brought others with it. His real feeling, he knew, was not anger but relief. He made a step forward.