Then the blood slowly fell away from her neck and face, and her heart ceased to pound, her eyes cleared and she grew gentle again, seeing his pained and frightened face.
"I didn't mean that—I didn't mean to be so rough, Tom, but it's no use. I don't want to marry you, nor anybody else. All I want is to be let alone. I'm going to Chicago. I want to see the world. I can't be shut up in a little town like Lodi. I want to see people—thousands of people. I want to see what the world is like. I may go to Europe before I get done with it. I'm going to study art. I'm going to be great. I can't marry any one now."
She poured out her confidences in swift, almost furious protest. She had never confided to him so much before.
His pain was not so overpowering but he found strength to say:
"I thought you were going to be a writer."
She flushed again. "Well, I am. But I'm going to be a painter, too. I'm going home," she said abruptly, and in such wise they walked along the returning way.
The glamour was gone from the young man's hair and eyes. She saw him as he was, clean, boyish, shallow. His physical charm was lost, and a sort of disgust of his supple waist and rounded limbs came upon her, and disgust at herself for that one moment of yielding weakness; and also the keen fear of having been unjust, of having given him a claim which she was repudiating, troubled her.
He made one last attempt.
"Rose, I wish you'd reconsider. What can you do in the world?"
"I don't know. I can be my own master for one thing," she replied. "I can see the world for another thing—and besides, I don't want to marry any one just yet." Her voice was abrupt, merciless, and the young fellow bowed his head to his sentence. She was too mysterious and powerful for him to understand.