"O, Jack," and she clasped my hand in hers, "you dear boy! And I must say I never dreamed you'd be so big and handsome!"
I seized her hands, holding them in mine: "And let me tell you, Eloise, you almost took my breath when I saw you for the first time this morning!"
There was a long silence before Eloise spoke. "Jack, what are we going to do about—about—Aunt Lucretia?"
"Why, I tell you there is nothing to do but to do as she says—marry—you know how she has planned this all her life. It would break her heart; and mine," I added softly.
"Listen now," said Eloise earnestly. "Jack, that is nonsense. I don't love you that way nor you me. I don't care what she says. Love is made from higher, nobler motives, and true marriages should be made in heaven as they say. I," she went on with a sigh, "Jack, I have given up; I was not made for love like that—as you want to love me. I am too selfish, I care too much for the fine world around me, for my own self, for pleasure. I love to will, to conquer, Jack. I don't want to love, to give myself up to any man and his whims unless—"
"Unless what?" I asked eagerly.
"Well, two things," she said. "First; unless I loved him—oh, if I only could! How I would love him! And if not that—well, for—for—it would have to be compensation of another kind, such as great wealth, and all that, to have a great name like that of the Countess of Carfax."
"The Countess of Carfax?" I asked.
She was looking at me very earnestly. I felt her eyes on my face. Something unpleasant began to dawn upon me.
"Jack, I cannot deceive you. I do not, I cannot love anyone that way—that one sweet way. It is not in me. I might have loved you that way, Jack, it is the truth, but Aunt Lucretia has thwarted the chance you had with me, with her blooded stock idea of it. That is why I've treated you so all my life; it was not I, it was Love resenting this profanity of itself."