"And this is all you care for me. If you were poor and I loved you, I'd share anything with you. But you are rich—you told me so twenty times. So, if you bring me to this, it can only mean, Max, that you despise me."
"No, no!" he cried, won by the sweetness of the look she gave him. He flung himself at her knees, striving to gain her hand, but Sheila, withdrawing it with firmness, said gently:
"What else am I to think? I haven't concealed from you that I don't love you. I liked you for your kindness, I respected you—yes, I trusted you, when you swore you would know how to earn my love. I consented to marry you telling you all this, for I longed for a home. Is this, then," she continued with a catch in her voice, "is this the way you're going to make me love you?"
He had caught her hand, he felt himself going, slipping from the old moorings, and with a last resistance he cried desperately:
"Sheila, what is it you want?"
"To be treated as your wife!" she said quickly, avoiding the pitfall of the specific. "To be treated as though you were proud of me. Either that or"—she paused a moment and ran her fingers through his hair; "or if money means more to you than to love and be loved, poor man, then let us own our mistake and part—now."
"No, Sheila, no! Don't leave me!" he cried, and sinking his head in her lap, vanquished, he caught her knees while the very rout of his soul made her indispensable to his infatuation.
"Then I am—to stay?"
A sob was her answer.
"Poor fellow," she said compassionately. "What do you know of life? I will teach you how to live."