"No, I should not," she said. "Why should I? Do you think it would make him care more for me to know that I had nearly died of love for another man?"
"Certainly not. And it might also make him less ready to marry you."
"That's exactly what I think."
One was as bitter as the other; but Maurice was the more violent of the two.
"And so you would begin the new life you talk of, with lies and deceit?—A most excellent beginning!"
"If you like to call it that. I only know, that no one with any sense thinks of dragging up certain things when once they are dead and buried. Or are you, perhaps, simple enough to believe any man living would get over what I have to tell him, and care for me afterwards in the same way?"
He turned, with tell-tale words on his tongue. But the expression of her face intimidated him. He had only to look at her to know that, if he spoke of himself at this moment, she would laugh him to scorn.
But the beloved face acted on him in its own way; his sense of injury weakened. "Louise," he said in an altered tone; "whatever you say to the contrary, in a matter like this, I can't advise you. For I don't understand—and never should.—But of one thing I'm as sure as I am that the sun will rise to-morrow, and that is, that you won't do it. Do you honestly think you could go on living, day after day, with a man you don't sincerely care for?—of whom the most you can say is that he's not repugnant to you? You little know what it would mean!—And you may reason as you will; I answer for you; and I say no, and again no. It isn't in you to do it. You are not mean and petty enough. You can't hide your feelings, try as you will.—No, you couldn't deceive some one, by pretending to care for him, for months on end. You would be miserably unhappy; and then—then I know what would happen. You would be candid—candid about everything—when it was too late."
There was no mistaking the sincerity of his words. But Louise was boundlessly irritated, and made no further effort to check her resentment.
"You have an utterly false and ridiculous idea of me, and of everything belonging to me."