Max, not finally rebuffed, but rather puzzled what to make of this form of repulse, was silent for a few moments.
"Well, if you won't let me talk about that," he said at last, "will you promise to let me know where you are going to, so that I shan't have to lose sight of you? Come, you like me well enough to agree to that, don't you?"
Carrie hesitated.
"I told you," she said at last, in a low voice, "that I didn't know myself where I was going. Have you forgotten that?"
"But it wasn't true. You said it to put me off. You must know!"
"Well, I shan't tell you. There!"
"Why?"
"Because it would be the beginning of what I don't want and won't have. Because you'd come and see me, and I shouldn't have the heart to say you mustn't come; and in the end, if you persisted, I shouldn't have the heart to stop you from making a fool of yourself."
"How, making a fool of myself?"
"Why, by marrying me. Now don't pretend you don't know it's true. Marrying me would be just ruin—ruin! Oh, I know! What would your family say, and be right in saying? That you'd been got hold of by a girl nobody knew anything about, without any parents or friends, and who came from nobody knew where."