“Then why may I not hope?” he demanded, eagerly.
“No, no; it would be worse than unkind for me to let you even hope that I might change my answer. I do not care for you in the way that a woman should love her husband.”
“Have you any real objection to me?”
“Yes,” she answered, clearly, steadily, meeting his eyes. “My objection is not one that should cause you any humiliation, Mr. Dixon. It is simply that you do not combine the qualities that I would expect in the man I married.”
“But you have not known me long. Perhaps——”
“I have seen enough of you, Mr. Dixon, to feel certain that I should never feel a deep affection for you.”
“If you have discovered anything about me,” he pleaded, intensely, “I might be able—would be able—to change for your sake.”
“That, of all, is least likely,” she replied, honestly, seriously. “If you were the man to win my heart, Mr. Dixon, you would already have shown the traits, the characteristics, that would interest me in a man.”
“And I have not shown those traits?”
“You have not.”