"Oh!" she exclaimed, softly, "don't, don't speak of that."
He turned his fine eyes on her with a light in them whose courage and beauty she did not understand.
"Why not speak of it?" he asked quietly. "I am not ashamed of the fact that I have no money. Such as money is, I shall make it some day, and I shall not
value it then any more than I do now. It is necessary, I begin to see, but only that. Its only importance is the importance we give to it: to keep straight with our kind; to justify our existence, and," he continued, "to help the next man."
His face took a firmer expression. More than in his recitation of his life he seemed to forget her. As he said so, his arms fell a little way away from her—she grew cold—he seemed a stranger. Only for a moment, however, for he turned, put out his arms, and drew her to him. He kissed her as he had not kissed her yet, and after a few moments said—
"Mary, I bring you my talent, and my manhood, and my courage—nothing else—and I want it to be enough for you."
She said that it was. That it was more than enough.
Fairfax sighed, his arms dropped, he smiled and looked at her, and said—
"I wonder if it is?" He glanced round the room quietly, with an arrogance of which he was unconscious. "You must give all this up, Mary."
"Must I?" She flushed and laughed. "You mean to say you want me to come to Bohemia?"