“Unworthy?” He looked at her steadily. “Can you fancy I was trying to—buy you? I thought you realized I love you.”
“I do. But—you’re only making it harder for me—to do right.”
“Do right?” Once more the echo. “Right!” He laughed, as his companion had never before heard him laugh. “I wonder if it is right to make a certain cripple of one human being on the chance of making a real weakling less weak? Right to—” a sudden tense halt. “I beg your pardon,” swiftly. “I didn’t mean that. Forget that I said it.” He stooped to pick up his 300 cap and gauntlets. When he came forward once more he was himself again, as he would be from that moment on.
“Don’t fancy for a minute I mean to hurt you, or to make it harder for you now,” he said steadily; “but this is the end, you realize, the turning of the ways—and I must be sure. You still can’t give me an answer, Elice?”
The girl did not look at him this time, did not stir.
“No, not even yet.”
A pause, short this time.
“And you won’t reconsider about going to work for a living, won’t let me help, as a friend, merely as a friend? You know me too well to misunderstand this. It would mean nothing absolutely to me now to help, and would not alter our friendship, if you wish, in the least. Won’t you let me do this trifle for you if I ask it?”
Resolutely the girl shook her head, very steadily.
“I understand and appreciate,” she said; “but I can’t.”