“And do you meditate—helping Linda all your life?”
“With God’s help.”
“Even,” he essayed to smile again, “even if you marry?”
“Oh, but I won’t marry,” she said, quickly, and kept her face bravely raised to his, though the tell-tale rose was coming and going on her transparent skin.
“Not even”—his smile was a ghastly caricature—”to spite the caricaturists?”
She smiled a faint response. “Not even for that. Has not Linda sacrificed herself on that altar? It’s true she’s a widow, but still—”
He could not help asking the question: “But why won’t you marry?”
“Because I don’t want to. Is that a woman’s reason?” And she smiled again.
“Ruth!” he cried, frenziedly, in a strange mixture of emotions. “I am not worthy to kneel to you!”
She opened her eyes, wondering: “Because I prefer celibacy? Because my life is happy enough as it is; because, thanks to Mrs. Verder, it is sufficiently filled with activity and movement?”