‘But love would come after, Miss Raeburn; I have heard that often. It always does with a woman; you would learn to love me.’
He stopped and looked at her. Through her growing exasperation his very fatuity, as he stood there, almost touched her. To her mind he was so unfit an object for the love he spoke of, parrot-fashion, so ignorant of realities. A man cannot understand things for which he has been denied the capacity; like Lady Eliza, in the midst of her anger, she could see the piteous side of him and be broad-minded enough to realize the pathos of limitation.
‘Don’t think I wish to hurt you,’ she said gently, ‘but do not allow yourself to hope for anything. I could never love you—not then any more than now. I am honestly sorry to give you pain.’
‘Then why do you do so?’ he asked pettishly.
She almost laughed; his attitude was invincible.
‘You will regret it some day,’ he said.
‘But you never will; you will be very happy one day with someone else who finds importance in the same things as you do. I should never suit you.’
‘Not suit me? Why not? You do yourself injustice.’
‘You are fitted for the very highest position,’ he said, with solemnity.