"But when I care, I care with my whole heart. Will you think this over, and give me an answer to-morrow?"
"I have already answered you."
"I beg you to reconsider it."
"Why should I reconsider it?"
"I would try to make you happy. Let me prove my devotion to you."
She looked long at him, and she saw, without the possibility of deceiving herself, that if she told him she loved him he would not believe it. It was the conventional answer when a millionaire offers marriage, and he had a rooted belief in the conventional. After marriage it would be the same. He would think duty prompted it, her kiss, her caress. Oh! suffocating thought. She would be farther from him than ever as his wife.
"I think we should get on together," he faltered, her refusal reaching him gradually, like a cold tide rising round him. "I had ventured to hope that you did not dislike me."
"I do not dislike you," said Anne deliberately. "You are quite right. The thing I dislike is a mercenary marriage."
He became ashen white. He rose slowly to his feet, and drawing near to her looked steadily at her, lightning in his eyes.
"Do I deserve that insult?" he said, his voice hardly human in its suppressed rage.