“I can be Anglo-Saxon, or English, or American, or whatever you choose to name the ability to look things squarely in the face and to talk squarely into the face of things.” She paused and debated coolly with herself, and coolly resumed. “You complain that while you have told me that you love me, I have not told you whether or not I love you. I shall settle that forever and now. I do love you——”
She thrust his eager arms away from her.
“Wait!” she commanded. “Who is the woman now? Or the Spaniard? I had not finished. I love you. I am proud that I love you. Yet there is more. You have asked me for my heart and intention. I have told you part of the one. I now tell you all of the other: I intend to marry Henry.”
Such Anglo-Saxon directness left Francis breathless.
“In heaven’s name, why?” was all he could utter.
“Because I love Henry,” she answered, her eyes still unshrinkingly on his.
“And you ... you say you love me?” he quavered.
“And I love you, too. I love both of you. I am a good woman, at least I always used to think so. I still think so, though my reason tells me that I cannot love two men at the same time and be a good woman. I don’t care about that. If I am bad, it is I, and I cannot help myself for being what I was born to be.”
She paused and waited, but her lover was still speechless.
“And who’s the Anglo-Saxon now?” she queried, with a slight smile, half of bravery, half of amusement at the dumbness of consternation her words had produced in him. “I have told you, without baffling, without fluttering, my full heart and my full intention.”