"But, Cyprian——"
"Dear!"
"I can't be a hypocrite about it. I don't really hope it is as bad as smallpox, but if anything does make me hope that Martha and Mary's Day of Judgment is true in every detail, it's her."
"But why, Ferlie?"
"If she came back would you ask her again now?" she asked, ignoring explanation.
He revolved the possibility in his mind, seeking, as ever with her, the meticulously accurate answer her candid eyes deserved.
"I hardly know. I have never met another woman whom I wanted—that way. But then, in my life out East, I see very few Englishwomen, and they are generally married. I have guarded the thought of her, as the Perfect One for me, so long in my heart that, sometimes, I doubt whether any woman could be all that one imagines her when one—cares. It is not fair to endow your Ideal with the qualities which suit you and then blame her for not acting always according to your conceptions."
She walked on silently for some way with bent head and her cheeks unusually flushed. Then she spoke again, rapidly.
"I have got to tell you, Cyprian. From what I have heard, now and again, I think that if you did ask now, you—you'd get the answer you wanted once. There aren't a lot of men like there used to be, and—and I don't understand what it is all about but there is Something.... Well, anyway, you'd stand a good chance now. So I've got to tell you."
"You don't want me to take that chance, Ferlie?"