'Perhaps I will one of these days.'

'When… when you return to Barbizon?'

'I won't promise. When I promise I like to keep my promise…. You ask too much. You don't realise what it means to a woman to give herself. Have you never had a scruple about anything?'

'Scruple about anything! I don't know what you mean…. What scruple can you have? you're not a religious woman.'

'It isn't religion, it is—well, something…. I don't know.'

'This has gone on too long,' he said, 'if I don't get you now I shall lose you.'

'If you were really afraid of losing me you would ask me to marry you.'

Morton was taken aback.

'I never thought of marriage; but I would marry you. Do you mean it?'

'Yes, I mean it.'