“Respect you!” he echoed. “I love you.”
“Yes, yes, I know that. But it isn’t the same thing!”
He stood bewildered, where he had risen from her feet, and looked down into her face, which she now lifted toward him. “If I had been another kind of woman, you wouldn’t have said it to me!”
“No; if you had been other than you are, I should not have loved you,” said the young man, gravely.
“Oh, I don’t mean that. I mean— Oh, Mr. Easton, what is it you find to love in me? What did I ever do or say that you ought to love me? Why do you love me?”
“I don’t know. Because—you are—you are my love.”
“Is it my looks you care for?”
“Your looks? Yes, you are beautiful. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But if I wasn’t, you would never have cared for me.”
“How can I tell? I have no reasons. You are the one human creature in all the world whose being or doing I can’t question. You are what I love, whatever you are.”