“Allow me to judge for myself. There could be no question of misery for either.”
She made the same gesture of protest and dissent.
“What fantastic folly comes between us!” he said angrily, for he was not a patient man. “You must surely allow me to know my own mind.”
“No doubt you think you know it. I am sure you are wholly sincere. I tell you—you honor me. But the future you wish for would make you wretched. You think you would forget my origin, but you could not do so. You would reproach yourself for having brought base blood into your race; you are prouder than you know—justly proud, I think. You would be too kind to show it, but you would regret every hour of your life. And I—I could not live to see that and know myself the cause.”
“You must think me a poor, weak, flickering fool!”
“Not at all. But you are speaking on impulse, and in cold blood you would lament your impulse.”
“I am not speaking on impulse. I come here in deliberate choice after long reflection.”
“And can you say that when you thus reflected you did not feel that marriage with me would sully your race?”
He was silent. He could not and would not lie to her.
“You are nobility and purity yourself,” he answered, after that silence. “You are not responsible for the sins of your father.”