The girl feels almost dizzy, and she closes her hot eyelids suddenly to shut out the line of that hard, obstinate chin.
"People's ideas on what is enough to support both vary so much," she says quietly, with well-bred indifference in her tone, while her heart beats wildly as she waits for his next remark.
"Well, what would you consider enough yourself?" he says coldly, after a slight pause, turning a little more towards her.
The red light glows steadily on her skirts, and he can see the graceful outline of her knees under them, and one small foot upon the hearthrug; the rest of the form is veiled in the shadow, except one rounded line of a shoulder and the glint of light hair above.
He looks down at her, and there seems a sudden, nervous expansion in his frame; outwardly there is not the faintest impatient movement. He waits quietly for her reply.
The girl hesitates as she looks at him. To her, in her absorbing love for the man before her, the question is an absurd mockery.
To reduce to a certain number of pounds this "enough," when for her anything or nothing would be enough!
"I would rather starve to death in your arms than live another day without you," is the current running under all her thoughts, and it confuses them and makes it difficult for her to speak.
What shall she answer? To name a sum too small in his eyes will be as great an error as to name one too large. He would only think her a silly, sentimental girl, who knows nothing of what she is talking about, and who has no knowledge and appreciation of the responsibilities of life.
Besides, to name a very small income will be to conjure up before his eyes the picture of a mean, pitiful, sordid existence, from which she feels, with painful distinctness, he would turn with disgust.