"Leave this house, then."
"It's your house, dear," he reminded her, gently, "and I am your guest. That puts it out of your power to enforce your desire. Don't you see?"
She tacitly admitted that there was an etiquette of hospitality by asking, coldly, "Why should I marry you?"
"I can't give you as many reasons as I might if you asked why I should marry you. The principal two are that I love you and that I am the only man whom Grace Goodchild can marry and still remain Grace Goodchild."
It seemed to her impossible that he could be sitting beside her talking about marriage seriously, and more than impossible that she could be sitting there listening.
"People know you as Grace Goodchild. After the marriage they will know you as the Grace Goodchild that H. R. has married. What would become of you if you cease to be Grace Goodchild?"
She thought of Philadelphia, and shuddered. But he thought he had not convinced her. He rose and said to her:
"Oh, my love! You are so utterly and completely beautiful that if I have a man's work to do I shall succeed only because the reward is you! I have come to the turning-point in my career and I must have the light of your eyes to guide me."
She did not love him and therefore she heard his words very distinctly. But she was a woman, and she was thrilled by his look and his voice and by his manner. He was no longer a mountebank to her, but an unusual man. And when she thought of not marrying him her mind reverted in some curious way to Philadelphia and its subtle suggestions of sarcophagi and the contents thereof. But this man must not think that he could win her by stage speeches even though they might be real. She said to him, determinedly:
"We might as well understand each other—"