But the verve had gone out of his words and as it went she seemed to regain her confidence. He made a last attempt to bring back his spirit. But his embrace seemed to stiffen her. He withdrew his arm and sat tapping on the steering wheel.
“When will you marry me, Margaret?”
No impetuousness in his voice now, no romance. It met hers in calmness.
“I don’t know.”
“You must know. I can’t stand it any longer. You must or you must drive me away. There’s no sense in further talk. You know I’ll exact nothing but the right to be near you. But I must have that. I must know. It isn’t as if I were younger and could rebound from one love into another. You’ve got me. I don’t think of anything else. You color every bit of work I do—every bit of thinking. I’ll trust to your terms. I’ve spent weeks building up my theory of marriage to suit your desires and visions. I don’t want to play upon your sympathies but I’ve got to have you, Margaret—or not.”
He sounded very discouraged, very humble, very desperate.
“I think I’d disappoint you, Walter.”
The pity in her voice and her own discouragement made him turn to her again but she held out a hand to meet his and he stayed, letting her clasp his hand loosely.
“I’d be just like this all the time. You think I’d change—under emotion—when we were married. I don’t think I would. You don’t know how all the things I’ve thought and seen have influenced me. I couldn’t go into marriage believing in it much. I couldn’t—go through it—trusting it much. And when I was cold and I’d nearly always be that way, you’d be disappointed if not angry. And if I did do as you say—relax—I’d be spoiling it by not trusting my own feeling. Don’t you think I know? Don’t you think I almost give in and then some devil of analysis comes and prods me into a watch on myself? I haven’t anything to give, Walter—except just what you’ve had. And the reason I can’t marry you is because while you say and I say that companionship is enough we both know it isn’t all you’d want. And it’s all you’d find. It’s all I can give to any man.”
“But, my God, Margaret, women and men have to marry—.”