She looked out of the window at the sky and the trees, and stood thinking for a while. Then: "Did you suppose it is always easy for a girl in love—whose instinct is to love—and to give? Especially such a girl as I am, especially when she is so dreadfully afraid that her lover may think her cold-blooded—self-seeking—perhaps a—a schemer——"
She covered her face with her hand—the quick, adorable gesture he knew so well.
"I—did ask you to marry me," she said, in a stifled voice, "but I am not a schemer; my motive was not self-interest. It was for you I asked it, Jim, far more than for myself—or I never could have found the courage—perhaps not even the wish. Because, somehow, I am too proud to wish for anything that is not offered."
As he said nothing, she broke out suddenly with a little sob of protest in her voice: "I am not a self-seeking, calculating woman! I am not naturally cold and unresponsive! I am—inclined to be—otherwise. And you had better know it. But you won't believe it, I am afraid, because I—I have never responded to—to you."
Tears fell between her fingers over the flushed cheeks. She spoke with increasing effort: "You don't understand; and I can't explain—except to say that to be demonstrative seemed unworthy in me."
He put his arms around her shoulders very gently; she rested her forehead against his shoulder.
"Don't think me calculating and cold-blooded—or a fool," she whispered. "Probably everybody kisses or is kissed. I know it as well as you do. But I haven't the—effrontery—to permit myself—such emotions. I couldn't, Jim. I'd hate myself. And I thought of that, too, when I asked you to marry me. Because if you had refused—and—matters had gone on—you would have been sorry for me sooner or later—or perhaps hated me. Because I would have been—been too much ashamed of myself to have—loved you—unwisely."
He stood with head bent, listening; and, as he listened, the comparison between this young girl and himself forced itself into his unwilling mind—how that all she believed and desired ennobled her, and how what had always governed him had made of him nothing more admirable than what he was born, a human animal. For what he began as he still was—only cleverer.
What else was he—except a trained animal, sufficiently educated to keep out of jail? What had he done with his inheritance? His body was sane and healthy; he had been at pains to cultivate that. How was it with his mind? How was it with his spiritual beliefs? Had he cultivated and added to either? He had been endowed with a brain. Had he made of it anything except an instrument for idle caprice and indolent passions to play upon?