“Why not?” he asked, undisconcerted.
“Because.”
“Come, let us reason together, Aurora.” He changed position, arranging himself on his elbow so as to be able 397to look at her. His eyes were steady. “For a man to ask a woman to marry him is of course the greatest piece of impertinence of which he could be guilty. But from such impertinences, Auroretta, has been derived every beautiful thing that has blessed our poor world from the beginning. No man is good enough for any woman, let that stand for an axiom. But there again, Auroretta, it’s not according to merit that those rewards, gentle and beautiful ladies, are dispensed. I have rather less to offer than any man in the world, but I am bold because you, dear, are just the one to be blind.”
“Oh, it’s not that, of course,” said Aurora, hurriedly.
“Don’t suppose for a moment that I am troubled by the size of your fortune or the size of my own. You haven’t any money, dear. Others have your money. I have almost to laugh at the splendid speed with which that open granary of yours will be eaten clean by all the birds coming to pick one seed at a time.”
“You needn’t laugh, then. Some of it is going to be pinned to me solid, so that nothing can get it away from me, not even I myself.”
“I am sorry to hear it. The other was so complete. Well, if you had nothing, I should still have just enough to keep us from hunger, though perhaps not from cold in these dear old stone houses of Italy. And you–I know you well enough to be sure of it–you are exactly the one to learn how much there can be in life besides its luxuries. Since my illness, too, Aurora, let me confide to you, there have been in me reawakenings.... I have felt the beginning–I am speaking with reference to my work,–I have felt intimations–No, it is too difficult to express without seeming to boast, which is horribly unlucky. In 398short, I have felt that I might do the turn still of forcing a careless generation to pay attention.”
“Oh, Gerald, how nice it is to have you say that!” she warmly rejoiced. “I’m so glad to hear it!”
“Now tell me why it is you won’t marry me. Stop, dear. Don’t say because you are not in love with me. I have difficulty in seeing how any one in her right senses could be in love with me. It would be enough, dear, that you should be to me as you were during those happy, happy days when I was so beastly ill. You are so generous, it would be merely fulfilling your nature. And I, upon my word, dear, would try to deserve it. I would give you reason to be kind. I am not without scraps of honor–wholly; I would do my best to make you happy.”
“No,”–she shook her head decidedly,–“no, Gerry,” she added, to take the sharp edge off her refusal, “no, Gerry; Rory won’t.”