"Mariana!"
Mariana threw aside her work and clasped her hands. Her face was upturned, her head supported by the back of the chair. He could see the violet shadow which rested like a faint suffusion where the heavy hair swept from behind her ear.
Suddenly her head was lowered, and the mellow lamplight irradiated across the pallor of her face.
"Of course I know you are working for me," she said, "but I had rather have less labor and more love."
"I love you as much when I am working for you as when I am shouting it in your ear."
"But I like to hear it."
"I love you. Now be quiet."
Mariana came and leaned over him. She put her arms about his shoulders and rested her head upon them. There was a sob in her voice. "Let me help you," she said. "It is so hard to sit still and do nothing, while you are killing yourself. Let me help you."
Anthony turned and caught her, and she lay limp and motionless in his embrace. He kissed her with sudden passion.
"You help me by living," he said, "by breathing, by being near me, by giving yourself to me unreservedly. Without you I lived but half a life—without you, now that I have had you, I should go to pieces—absolutely. I love you as a man loves once in a thousand years. But we must live, and I must work."