“Oh, what is going to be gained if I tell you?” Helen gave him a prisoner’s look. She turned her head from side to side rebelliously, as if she had flown into a cage whose door was now unexpectedly shut.
“I meant to make you happy. All I say seems to make everything worse. I shall tell you nothing more.”
“You will tell me,” he said in a tone of calm authority, “all I ask. It is my affair whether I am happy or wretched. Yours is to obey my wish: because you love me, Helen.”
His imperious voice fell to a depth of tenderness in which her soul and body seemed to sink and drown.
“I have loved you,” she whispered, “ever since that night,—the first time I saw you here, in my father’s house.”
“Now, sir!” she added, with her sudden, pretty willfulness, “make the most of it. I’m not ashamed of it, either. But I shall be ashamed of you if—this—if after I’ve said it all, it doesn’t make you happy.... That’s all I care for,” she said quietly. “It is all I care for in this world.”
“Oh, what shall we do?” pleaded Bayard.
“You have your work,” said Helen dreamily, “and I your love.”
Her voice sank to a whisper.
“Is that enough for you?” demanded the man. “I shall perish of it, I shall perish!”