“Chaudiere is the finest place in the world,” he replied proudly, and as a matter of fact. “But, for the sake of knowledge, you should see what the rest of the world is. It helps you to understand Chaudiere better. I ask you to be my wife, Rosalie.”
She shook her head sorrowfully.
“You said before, it was not because I am old, not because I am rich, not because I am Seigneur, not because I am I, that you refused me.”
She smiled at him now. “That is true,” she said.
“Then what reason can you have? None, none. ‘Pon honour, I believe you are afraid of marriage because it’s marriage. By my life, there’s naught to dread. A little giving here and taking there, and it’s easy. And when a woman is all that’s good, to a man, it can be done without fear or trembling. Even the Cure would tell you that.”
“Ah, I know, I know,” she said, in a voice half painful, half joyous. “I know that it is so. But, oh, dear Monsieur, I cannot marry you—never—never.”
He hung on bravely. “I want to make life easy and happy for you. I want the right to do so. When trouble comes upon you—”
“When it does I will turn to you—ah, yes, I would turn to you without fear, dear Monsieur,” she said, and her heart ached within her, for a premonition of sorrow came upon her and filled her eyes, and made her heart like lead within her breast. “I know how true a gentleman you are,” she added. “I could give you everything but that which is life to me, which is being, and soul, and the beginning and the end.”
The weight of the revealing hour of her life, its wonder, its agony, its irrevocability, was upon her. It was giving new meanings to existence-primitive woman, child of nature as she was. All morning she had longed to go out into the woods and bury herself among the ferns and bracken, and laugh and weep for very excess of feeling, downright joy and vague woe possessing her at once. She looked the Seigneur in the eyes with consuming earnestness.
“Oh, it is not because I am young,” she said, in a low voice, “for I am old—indeed, I am very old. It is because I cannot love you, and never can love you in the one great way; and I will not marry without love. My heart is fixed on that. When I marry, it will be when I love a man so much that I cannot live without him. If he is so poor that each meal is a miracle, it will make no difference. Oh, can’t you see, can’t you feel, what I mean, Monsieur—you who are so wise and learned, and know the world so well?”