"Other men love me as much as you do," persisted Isabel.
"Then let them love you, and let me go," replied Paul roughly. "I may be poor and obscure, and a nobody in your world, but I'm a man all the same, and I'll let no fine lady make a plaything of me."
"You are very unkind!"
"I am very unhappy."
Isabel pouted. "It is your own fault if you are. I'm sure I am nice enough to you to please the most exacting man."
"But I don't thank you for mere niceness. Can't you understand? You are nice to all the men that admire you; but there are some things a fellow can't and won't share. I am asking for bread——"
"And therefore when diamonds and rubies fall from my lips you call them stones," concluded Isabel flippantly.
Paul's face grew stern. "Don't laugh at me," he said, "it is doing both yourself and me an injustice. If you cannot love me, tell me so, and let me go out of the sight of your face and live my own life as best I can; and if you can love me, tell me so, and make me the happiest man this side Paradise. But for pity's sake don't play with me."
Isabel's eyes filled with tears. "Please forgive me," she said. "It was horrid of me, but I did not mean it."
"I know you didn't," replied Paul, and his voice shook. "Oh! my darling, do you think I don't realize all that I am asking of you? Do you think I don't know all that you will have to give up if you marry a poor man like me? But I want you, dear, and I cannot do without you."