“You asked me three or four weeks ago,” she said, “to marry you. I refused. I told you that I did not know the meaning of Love or the necessity for Love. I now understand that it means, above all, the perfect sympathy and the necessity for sympathy. I now understand, besides, that you did not then know, any more than I myself, the necessity of sympathy. You were a lonely man, content to be lonely, and sufficient for yourself. You were a proud man—proud through and through, belonging to a caste separated from the people by a long line of ancestry and a record full of honour. You had no occasion to earn your daily bread; you were already distinguished; there was no man of your age in the whole country more fortunate than you, or more self-centred. I was able to esteem you—but you could not move my heart. Are you following me, Leonard?”
“Many things have happened to you since then. You have joined the vast company of those who suffer from the sins of their own people; you have known shame and humiliation——”
“And between us flows that stream.”
Even for a strong and resolute woman, who is not afraid of misunderstanding and does not obey conventions, there are some things very hard to say.
“There is one thing, and only one thing, Leonard, that can dry that stream.”
His face changed. He understood what she meant.
“Is there anything? Think, Constance. Langley Holme was your ancestor. He was done to death by mine.”
“Yes. There is one way. Oh, Leonard, in this time of trouble and anxiety I have watched you day by day. I have found the man beneath the scholar. If I had accepted your offer three weeks ago, it would have been out of respect for the scholar. But a woman can only love a man—not a scholar, believe me, nor a student, nor a poet, nor an artist, nor anything except a man.”
“Constance! It is impossible! You are his daughter.”