He was bending forward, alert and passionate, as if it were a chance to own the world that he was begging for. She told him so.
"It is—my world. I mean it, Marjorie. I don't deserve it, and I don't see how you can trust me, but let me do that. Or anything. I don't care how hard or how ridiculous, if it would mean that some day I could come back to you and you'd consider—just consider—being my wife."
"But, Francis! But, Francis, I don't want you to be ridiculous! I don't want you to fall down on your work. I don't want you to do anything——"
"I know you don't. That's the worst of it. And it's coming to me."
She was silent for a little while.
"It hadn't occurred to you, then, that perhaps—perhaps living in the house with you might have made me—well, a little fonder of you?"
She did not know what she had expected him to do when she said that. Anything but what he did do—sit perfectly still and unbelieving, and look as if she had stabbed him.
"No," he said finally. "That couldn't happen. Don't talk to me that way, Marjorie. It's cruel. Not that you haven't the right to be cruel."
It was Marjorie's time of triumph, that she had planned for so long, in those days when the work was hard and things were lonely sometimes. But she did not take it. She only put out one shy hand, for it was a little hard for her to go on talking, she was getting so tired, and said timidly:
"But it is true, Francis. I—I am fond of you. And if there's anything to forgive, I have. You know you can't be so dreadfully angry with people when—when you like them. You—why, you don't have to wait and have tests. I'll stay with you now, if you want me."