“Child!” he cried. “You don’t know me!”
“It doesn’t matter,” she told him quaintly. “Love often comes this way.”
He took her hand against his cheek.
“Dear,” he said, “I am thirty-five—a pretty world-stained and world-weary creature. Your radiant youth was given you for a better man than I.”
“I love you, Dick, I have never loved before.”
“Athena, I am ... going to marry ... some one else.”
She trembled against him.
“Some one you love?” she cried. “Dick, some one you love as you could love me? Is she as young and beautiful? Could she amuse you, and care for you, and adore you always—always, as I would?”
“Athena,” he said slowly, “there is no one like you ... in the world. I love this ... other girl in my own way. Not as you should be loved, but I’m not fit for such love as that. I can’t marry you. Athena—dear—don’t make it too hard.”
She sat, silent.