He heard her dress rustle as she instinctively drew away from him.
“Meet me in New York or Chicago?” she repeated. “But why meet me there? I don’t understand. Why not be married here?”
He turned toward her and threw up his head as a person does who is going to speak emphatically and at length. Only in raising his head his eyes remained on the ground.
“My dear girl,” he said in a suave tone, “you’ve lived all your life in these small, half-civilized California towns, and there are many things about life in larger and more advanced communities you don’t understand. I’ve just told you I loved you, and you know that your welfare is of more moment to me than anything in the world. I would give my heart’s blood to make you happy. But I am just now hardly in a position to marry. You must understand that.”
It was said. Mariposa gave a low exclamation and rose to her feet. He rose, too, feeling angry with her that she had forced him to this banal explanation. There were times when her stupidity could be exasperating.
She was very pale, her eyes dark, her nostrils expanded. On her face was an expression of pitiful bewilderment and distress.
“Then—then—you didn’t want to marry me?” she stammered with trembling lips.
“Oh, I want to,” he said with a propitiatory shrug. “Of course I want to. But one can’t always do what one wants. Under the circumstances, as I tell you, marriage is impossible.”
She could say nothing for a moment, the first stunned moment of comprehension. Then she said in a low voice, still with her senses scattered, “And I thought you meant it all.”
“Meant what? that I love you? Don’t you trust me? Don’t you believe me? You must acknowledge I understand life better than you do.”