“I think it was,” she said faintly. “Oh! don’t you understand that that isn’t a way for a man to think or to feel about a woman like me?”
“Little American girl,” Collier Pratt said, “little American girl, don’t you understand that there is only one way for a woman to think or feel about a man like me? I have had my life, and I haven’t liked it much. I’m to be loved warmly and lightly till the flesh and blood prince comes along, but I’m never to be mistaken for him.”
“I don’t believe you’re sincere,” Nancy cried; “women must have loved you deeply, tragically, and have suffered all the torture there is, at losing you.”
“That may be. Sincerity is a matter of so many connotations. You haven’t known many artists, my dear.”
“No,” said Nancy. “No, but I thought they were the same as other men, only worthier.”
“How should they be? He who perceives a merit is not necessarily he who achieves it. Else the world would be a little more one-sided than it is.”
“I can’t believe those things,” Nancy said. “I want to believe in you. You must care for me, and what becomes of me. You have known so long what I was like, and what I was made for. All this seems like a terrible nightmare. I want you to tell me what it is you want of me, and let me give it to you.”
“I am proving some faint shadow of worthiness at least, when I say to you that I want absolutely nothing of you. I love, but I refrain.”
“You love,” Nancy cried, “you love?”