"I am not."
"Then why should you not marry me? Stay! Let me explain my position."
His eyes became, if anything, brighter. Something came over her which made one forget how physically small she was. One realised that the girl, like the man she was addressing, had a magnetic personality of her own.
"I am, in a measure, Reggie--I am going to call you Reggie--what it is the fashion to call a pessimist. It is my father's dower. I am afraid that, in a sense, from the men of my acquaintance, I always expect the worst. I believe most of them do, in their youth, many things which they ought not to do--and for which, in their age, they are sorry. I take this for granted. And I believe that, in spite of this being so, some of them make good husbands and good fathers. I think it possible that your temptations have been greater than is the case with the average man, and that, therefore, your misdoings have been more. But I am convinced that, as regards real strength, you are stronger than the average man, and that you can, if you like, put these things behind you for ever--and, on the stepping-stones of your dead self, rise to higher things. And I believe that you will like, because you love me--and because, also, I love you."
"Unfortunately, Miss Jardine----"
She made an imperious gesture with her hand.
"Call me Dora. With you, now, it shall not be Miss Jardine."
"Unfortunately"--there was an almost imperceptible pause, and then there came very softly the Christian name--"Dora, there are things which, when they are once done, we cannot put away. They meet us at Philippi."
"If in your life there are such ghosts, why did you ask me to marry you?"
"I ought not to have done. When I did I hoped that I should be able to lay the ghosts, and that for me there would be no Philippi."