"Don't you ever feel the need of it?"
She threw up her head proudly. "No, my work is all-sufficient. There is no joy like creation; no intoxication like success."
"But if you should fail?"
"I shall not fail," she replied confidently. "When you dedicate your whole life to a thing, you simply must have it. The only reason for a failure is that the desire to succeed is not strong enough. I ask no favours—nothing but a fair field. I'm willing to work, and work hard for everything I get, as long as I have the health and courage to work at all."
He looked at her a long time before he spoke again. The firelight lingered upon the soft curves of her throat with a caressing tenderness. Her eyes, deep, dark, and splendid, were shining with unwonted resolution, and her mouth, though set in determined lines, had a womanly sweetness of its own. Around her face, like a halo, gleamed the burnished glory of her hair.
For three long years he had loved her. Helen, with her eyes on things higher than love and happiness, had persistently eluded his wooing. His earnest devotion touched her not a little, but she felt her instinctive sympathy for him to be womanish weakness.
"This is final?" he asked, rising and standing before her.
She rose also. "Yes, please believe me—it must be final; there is no other way. I don't want lovers—I want friends."
"You want me, then, to change my love to friendship?"