He was very pale and his eyes were fixed upon her face. “Do you mean—” he began, “do you mean you could—you would marry me?”
She shook her head again. “I think I must be crazy,” she said, desperately. “I think we all must be, your cousin as well as the rest of us. He came to me a little while ago and asked me to—to say yes to you. HE did! He, of all people! The—the very one that I—I—”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course.” Galusha was trembling with eagerness. “Yes, of course. Cousin Gussie is an extraordinarily able man. He approves of it highly. He told me so.”
She scarcely heard him. “Oh, don't you see,” she went on, “why it would be wicked for me to think of such a thing? You are a great man, a famous man; you have been everywhere and seen everything; I haven't had any real education, any that counts besides yours; I haven't been anywhere; I am just a country old maid. Oh, you would be ashamed of me in a month.... No, no, no, I mustn't. I won't.”
“But, Miss Martha—”
“No. Oh, no!”
She turned away. Galusha had what was, for him, an amazing and unprecedented inspiration.
“Very well,” he declared. “I shall go to—to the devil, I think. Yes, I will. I shall give away my money, all of it, and go to the devil.”
It was absurd enough, but the absurdity of it did not strike either of them then.
“Oh, WON'T you go to Egypt?” she begged. “Won't you, PLEASE?”