As he discreetly gazed, whenever she was not looking his way, saying to himself, like Geraint: "'Here by God's rood is the one maid for me,'" he suddenly felt the north, and started with a kind of terror as he remembered Martia. He bade the company a hasty good-night, and went for a long walk by the Rhine, and had a long talk with his Egeria.
"Martia," said he, in a low but audible voice, "it's no good, I can't; c'est plus fort que moi. I can't sell myself to a woman for gold; besides, I can't fall in love with Julia; I don't know why, but I can't; I will never marry her. I don't deserve that she should care for me; perhaps she doesn't, perhaps you're quite mistaken, and if she does, it's only a young girl's fancy. What does a girl of that age really know about her own heart? and how base I should be to take advantage of her innocence and inexperience!"
And then he went on in a passionate and eager voice to explain all he had thought of during the day and still further defend his recalcitrancy.
"Give me at least your reasons, Martia; tell me, for God's sake, who you are and what! Are you me? are you the spirit of my mother? Why do you love me, as you say you do, with a love passing the love of woman? What am I to you? Why are you so bent on worldly things?"
This monologue lasted more than an hour, and he threw himself on to his bed quite worn out, and slept at once, in spite of the nightingales, who filled the starlit, breezy, balmy night with their shrill, sweet clamor.
Next morning, as he expected, he found a letter:
"Barty, you are ruining me and breaking my life, and wrecking the plans of many years—plans made before you were, born or thought of.
"Who am I, indeed? Who is this demure young black‑eyed witch that has come between us, this friend of Ida Maurice's?
"She's the cause of all my misery, I feel sure; with Ida's eyes I saw you look at her; you never yet looked at Julia like that!—never at any woman before!
"Who is she? No mate for a man like you, I feel sure. In the first place, she is not rich; I could tell that by the querulous complaints of her middle‑class mother. She's just fit to be some pious Quaker's wife, or a Sister of Charity, or a governess, or a hospital nurse, or a nun—no companion for a man destined to move the world!