“Ah, dear girl, how do you know how I expect to be loved?”
“I know well how you should be loved, and I fear that I have deceived you.”
“Nay, I never asked you if you loved me. If I had done so, and you had answered ‘Yes,’ you would have made at least an attempt to deceive me. I do not say, mind you, that I would have been deceived. I have been speaking just now of what is natural in a girl. Do you think that I fancy it is natural in a girl who is not yet twenty to fall in love with a man who is more than thrice her age?”
“Surely ’tis not impossible?”
“Ah, the little note of hope that I detect in your inquiry shows me how conscientious a young woman you are—how determined you are to give me every chance, so to speak. But I do not wish you to think of me in that way. I do not want you to try to love me.”
“Not to try to love you—not to try?”
“Even so; because love to be love must come without your trying to love. Is that too hard a saying for you, Miss Betsy?”
“It is not too hard a saying; what is hard is the matter to which it refers—you would not have me do my best to love you?”
“Even so. Do you believe that you will find it so very hard to refrain from such an attempt?”
“I have promised to marry you.”