"I'm so fond of you. Do you know I've never heard your name?"
She told him her name.
"Belle, I'd be so good to you. Don't you like me?"
She turned to him. No one could see them. The first kiss of her first love—moonlight, and the barcarolle. Though she did not recognise it, there was a single instant in which she was capable of any weakness. But she was not capable of strength.
"I can't," she repeated. "How can I? To marry again! I couldn't say such a thing to them. What would they—I couldn't do it."
"I don't understand. You 'can't marry me' because they wouldn't like it? You don't mean that? Or is it because you don't think you ought to leave them?"
"Both."
"But—good heavens!... Besides, there's this aunt they've gone to—they could live with her. You aren't telling me—you can't mean you won't marry me because you imagine it's your duty to sacrifice our happiness for the sake of two young women you don't care about? You know you don't care about them! It's mad! I need you more than they do; I can make you happier than they do. I shall never be a millionaire, but I shall come into a bit by and by, and I can make things bright for you at home, one day. You'd have rather a good time out there, for that matter. I want to make things bright for you—I want to see you what you were meant to be. You've never had your youth yet, you've been done out of it; I want to give it to you, I want you to forget what it means to feel depressed. That'd be just my loveliest joy, to see you in high spirits, laughing, waking up younger instead of older, growing more like a girl every day.... People'd begin to take me for your father! That'd be rough on me, wouldn't it?"
She looked, misty-eyed and smiling, at this man who had transfigured life for her.
"I know it sounds silly of me."