"Is it impossible?"
She paused an infinitesimal moment and said:
"Just that. Impossible."
"Would it be fair to ask why 'impossible'?"
"Not unfair at all. But perhaps I cannot answer. I will try to answer. When you told me what you wanted it pleased me because you wanted it, and it hurt me because I (who had never thought about it before) knew at once that it was not possible to do what you wanted, and I would so much rather be able to please you."
"You will never be able to do anything else but please me. Your refusing cannot change your being yourself."
Gore could not worry her with demands for reasons. He knew there was no one else. He knew she was not incapable of loving—for he knew, better than ever, that she loved greatly and deeply all whom she knew. Nay, he knew that she loved him, among them, but more than any of them. And yet he saw that she was simply right. What he had asked was "impossible, just that." Better than himself she would love no one, and in the fashion of a wife she would love no one, ever.
Yet, he asked her a question, not to harry her but because of her father. "Perhaps you have resolved never to marry," he said.
"I never thought of it. But, as soon as I knew what you were saying, I knew I should never marry anyone. It was not a resolution. It was just a certainty. Alas! our resolutions are not certainties."
"But," Gore said gently, feeling it necessary to prepare her, "your father may wish you to marry."