His desire was to batter down her opposition, yet he could not but realize that she was too strong, and that he would only do grievous and useless harm. He controlled himself, therefore, and was silent. At last he grunted:—
“Can’t you make me see what you mean?”
“It isn’t a thing I could say in cold blood,” she said.
He moved towards her, but she held up her hands to ward him off.
“No, no!’” she almost whispered. “That only makes my heart grow colder and colder until it aches.”
“Do you mean that you—don’t—want me?”
“Foolish, foolish, foolish!” she said. “If you loved me one tenth part as much as I love you, you would know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” he said simply. “I don’t, honestly I don’t. Perhaps you are so beautiful to me that I am blinded with it.”
Of the truth of her feeling against him he had no doubt, but though he laboured bitterly to understand it, he could make nothing of it. He was driven back on his simple need for her.
“Very well,” he said; “if it makes you feel like that for me to touch you, I never will. Only don’t talk of loving me more than I love you. It isn’t true.”