"Can't you have any understanding, any sympathy with human love? Can't you? Doesn't a man's love mean anything to you but words? Is there anything to be ashamed of in it?—merely because nothing has ever yet awakened you to it?"
"Nothing ever will," she said steadily. "The friendship you can have of me is more than love—cleaner, better, stronger——"
"It isn't strong enough to make you renounce what you are planning to do!"
"No."
"Yet love would be strong enough to make you renounce anything!"
She said calmly: "Call it by its right name. Yes, they say its slaves become irresponsible. I know nothing about it—I could not—I will not! I loathe and detest any hint of it—to me it is degrading—contemptible——"
"I am telling you the truth," she retorted, pale, and breathing faster. "I'm telling you what I know—what I have learned in a bitter school—during two dreadful years——"
"That!"
"Yes, that! Now you know! Now perhaps you can understand why I crave friendship and hold anything less in horror! Why can't you be kind to me? You are the one man I could ask it of—the only man I ever saw who seemed fitted to give me what I want and need, and to whom I could return what he gave me with all my heart—all my heart——"