"No, not in that way! I will have no more secretiveness, no more ground for self-reproaches. Am I to have it on my conscience that every day you sacrifice yourself for me further you come nearer to your ruin? For in the end it must ruin you; it will stick to you like mud. And why should we make a polluted thing out of what is most sacred to us? Or is it that I am not good enough to be your lasting companion through life? Do you shrink from being my wife on the score of poverty?"
In repudiation of this idea she almost screamed aloud.
"What you have and how much," he continued, "I do not wish to inquire. I am well enough off for both of us. My uncle allows me three hundred marks a month, and I get four hundred from Dr. Salmoni."
Ah! how she shuddered at that name!
"Besides, I can easily earn three hundred marks by articles alone ... that's altogether a thousand marks a month. As good as a general's pay.... Isn't that enough for you?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, be quiet!" she cried, hardly able to contain herself. "I wasn't thinking of money."
"Of what, then?"
He planted himself in front of her with an air of challenge. The dent of wrath was between his brows, as if it had been chiselled there. She bowed her head. Since the days of the colonel she had never been so afraid of any man.
"Well, why not? Out with it and say what it is! To all appearances you do not love me sufficiently. You still cling, perhaps, to the memory of the fellow who has long ago forgotten you. You may probably have said to yourself, 'I can make use of this foolish boy as a lover pro tem. He's all very well as an amusement to pass the time, but when it comes to his seriously interfering with the course of my life, I must get rid of him--throw him over, eh?' Isn't that it? Be brave and say it straight out! I am merely a stop-gap, not the sort of man you want for a husband. Not till I have begun to make a name could you think of marriage. Am I not right? Very well."
He had taken up his hat, and looked as if he intended going.