Marcello leaned forward and laid his hand upon hers. She looked up quietly, for it was a familiar action of his.
"I am going to marry you," he said, watching her, and speaking earnestly.
She kept her eyes on his, but she shook her head again, slowly, from side to side, and her lips were pressed together.
"Yes, I am," said Marcello, with a little pressure of his hand to emphasise the words.
But she withdrew hers, and leaned far back from him.
"Never," she said. "I have told you so, many times."
"Not if I tell you that nothing else will make me happy?" he asked.
"If I still made you happy, you would not talk of marriage," Regina answered.
For the first time since she had loved him he heard a ring of bitterness in her voice. They had reached that first node of misunderstanding in the love relations of men and women, which lies where the one begins to think and act upon a principle while the other still feels and acts from the heart.
"That is not reasonable," Marcello said.