“You could adapt yourself to me without sacrificing the least of your individuality. I wouldn’t have you other than you are. Where would your charm be?”
“You began very practically, but you are getting rather Utopian.”
“No, because we are both young. It is true that I am twenty-five, and that my character is quite formed—a difficult thing for a woman used to American men to understand. But I still have all the fresh enthusiasm of youth for anything that interests me, and an immense capacity for affection, which has been satisfied very little. If you loved me well enough—that would be the whole point.”
“In other words, the entire responsibility of this matrimonial experiment would lie on my shoulders.”
“Don’t call it an experiment, for God’s sake! It is life and death for me. If I take you I take you forever, and if you decide to marry me, you must make up your mind that we will be happy.”
They walked on for another moment in silence. He felt her fingers curl up stiffly, but she said quite calmly:
“I decided long ago, when I was sixteen, I think, to marry you, and I have never changed my mind for a moment. I always knew that you would come. On Monday, I could not make up my mind to fall into your arms like a ripe apple; but you are so serious that you have made me serious, and I cannot coquet any longer.”
Cecil had dropped her hand and stopped short, facing her.
“Is it possible that you love me?” he asked. “Is it possible?”
“I have loved you twenty times more than any one on earth for years and years, and I shall love no one else as long as I live.... Cecil, you do stare so!”