"I mean that I don't see love as you see it; that even if I did care for any one, I'm not ready to give way to it."
She paused as if she too were struggling to express the inarticulate. "O, I am so disappointed in life! It isn't at all what I thought it would be! People aren't what I dreamed they were. Everything is hard and rough and difficult. I don't like life a bit!"
"I don't like it as it is, either," agreed Douglas. "That's why I'm trying to change it, here in Lost Chief. But I wouldn't change my love for you, no matter how it hurts. That's the one beautiful thing in Lost Chief and in me."
He turned to the face, so dimly rebellious, so vaguely sweet in the dark, and his whole soul was in his steady deep voice.
"Judith, won't you marry me? You are my whole life!"
Judith's voice rose passionately. "Don't talk about it! Don't! I don't believe in marriage. I tell you I don't, Douglas!"
"Why not?"
"I've told you again and again. Marriage is too hard on a woman. Why should I want to cook your meals and darn your socks and wash your clothes for you the rest of my life? Yes, and listen to you swear and lay down the law and spit tobacco juice? And when I'm a little older and beginning to get knotty with the hard work, see you take notice of girls who are younger and prettier than I. No, Doug!"
"O, love isn't like that!" exclaimed Douglas vehemently.
"My love won't be like that, I can tell you!" The excitement still was evident in Judith's voice. "I'm not going to kill it, by marrying."