"You see, my very dearest," she said, in that soft voice of hers, which always stirred his senses, "if you still wish it we will do it, but, if you do change, how much better for you not to have married me now!"
"And better for you too?" he asked.
"No, no, no! You know, just for myself, there would be nothing in the world better for me than to marry you," she returned passionately. "Everest, there is no need for me to tell you that, surely? You must see how it all appears to me.... You are so wonderful, so exceptional!... I feel you ought to have the very best and loveliest woman who ever existed...."
"Have I not got her here?" returned Everest, with equal passion, leaning over her, and kissing her on the mouth and eyes, so that she could neither breathe nor see. "You try to make me the most conceited man in the world, but I have sense enough left to know I am not half worthy of you."
Regina yielded herself up to his caresses, nestling close against his breast, her lips on the warm brown of his neck, above his collar.
"Listen," she whispered, "I want you to listen to me. I have just this one quality that is good: I love you so intensely, so absorbingly, that myself is nothing to me beside you. It is very difficult to put the absolute extremes of emotion into words, but I love you so much that when I think of you my own life, my own happiness means nothing to me, beside yours. You must be happy, that's all that matters. Nothing else is of any account at all. If I can in any way make you happy that would be my greatest delight, as it has been already; but I am not sure I should be really doing that by marrying you, and until I am sure, I won't do it. I am after all only a country rector's daughter, without any special birth, position or beauty.... No—hush," she said, putting her hand over his mouth, as he tried to interrupt her. "I am only beautiful just now, because I am young and in love with you—blazing with love for you in every vein. That fire lights up my eyes and paints my cheeks and lips, and makes me look beautiful, but that is your gift," she interrupted herself passionately, kissing him on his black hair, above the ear, "you have given me that beauty.... It is not the stone-cut massive regularity that the world calls beauty, and so, when your friends saw me as your wife they would say: 'Why has he married her? He must have been trapped in some way—she is only this; she is only that—she has no this, and no that,' and perhaps, after a time, you might get to feel so too. And it would kill me, simply, nothing else, to see you regretted marrying me. You came here as our guest, and we all, as hosts, have a sacred duty towards you. I want you to go away as absolutely free and untied as when you came, free to marry, if you wish, some rich great, wonderful person, your equal, who has magnificent beauty and everything else to offer you."
"Do you think that I could do that now, after yesterday? Marry another woman and put her in the place that belongs to you? I feel now I shall never care to take another woman in my arms again. You were so sweet to me, so unquestioning, so trusting, and I acted so badly, I shall never forgive myself! It is not you that tie me, my own action binds me."
Regina raised herself with a quick spring in his clasp.
"Whatever obligation there was, if there were any," she said in a low tone, "is paid in full now by your offer and my refusal. Yesterday was a gift to you, a gift, a gift, a gift," she repeated, with hot kisses on his hand at each word, "just as I would give my life itself to you, if you wanted it."
"There must be many days like yesterday, and you can give me something else, which no other woman can, when we are married, for we will marry whatever you say."