"Why should I not? It is the most natural thing in the world."
"I do not think so; I can not understand."
"Accept it upon my testimony, do not try to understand it."
He betrayed no feeling, except in his quickened tone; she was too bewildered to be conscious of any feeling at all; she listened to the sound of her own voice, as if another were speaking; she remembered afterward, that for once in her life she had heard the sound of her own voice. She was thinking, "My voice _is_ pleasant, only so cold and even."
"Will you not answer me?"
She was thinking; she had forgotten to answer.
"Why should you like me?" she said at last.
"There"s reason enough, allow me to judge; but you do not come to the point."
"I do not know how."
"I thought that coming to the point was one of your excellences."
"Your question-your a.s.sertion rather-is something very new."
She could see the words; she was reciting them from a printed page.
"Don"t you know whether you like me or not?" he asked in the old a.s.sured, boyish way.
"No, I do not know that; if I did I should care for what you are saying, and now I do not care. Once, in that time when I loved you and you did not care, I would have died with joy to hear you say what you have said; my heart would have stopped beating; I should have been too glad to live; but perhaps when _that_ you went away and died, the Tessa that loved you went away and died, too. I think that I _did_ die-of shame.
Now I hear you speak the words that I used to pray then every night that you might speak to me, and now I do not care! When I was little I cried myself sick once for something I wanted, and when mother gave it to me I was too sick and tired to care. No, I do not want to marry you, Dr.
Towne, I am too sick and tired to love you."
"Why do you not want to marry me?"
"Because-because-" she looked up into his grave eyes-"I do not want to; I am not satisfied with you."
"Why are you not satisfied with me?"
"I do not know."
"Are you disappointed in me? Have I changed?"
"Oh, no," she said sorrowfully, "you have not changed-not since I have known you this time. It is like this, as if I were blind when I knew you before, and I loved you for what you were to me; but as I could not see you, I loved you for what I imagined you to be, and now, I am not blind, my eyes are wide, wide open, and I look at you and wonder "where is the one I knew?" I do not know you; you are a stranger to me; I would love you if I could; I can not say _yes_ and not love you. I have never told any one, but I may tell you now. While you were away at St. Louis, I promised to marry some one; he had loved me all my life, and I was so heart-broken because of the mistake that I had made about you; and I wanted some one to care for me, so that I might forget how I loved somebody that did not love me. And then I was wild when I knew what I had done! I did not love him; I felt as if I were bound in iron; I shall never forget that. I do not want to feel bound in iron to you. Why did you not ask me last year when you knew how I cared for you?"
He dropped his eyes, the hot color flushing even to his forehead. "I could not-sincerely."
"Why did you act as if you liked me?"
"I did like you. I did not love you. I did not understand. I can not tell you how unhappy I was when I found that you had misunderstood me. I would not have hurt you for all the universe; I did not dream that you could misunderstand me; I was attracted to you; I did not know that I manifested any stronger feeling. Surely you have forgiven me."
"Yes, I have forgiven you; I did not really blame you; I knew that you did not understand. You are a stupid fellow about women.-You are only a stupid, dear, big boy."
"But you do not answer me."
"I _have_ answered you. Do you ask me sincerely now?" she asked curiously.
"You know I do," he said angrily.
"Do you ask me because Miss Gerard has refused you?" with a flash of merriment crossing her face.
"I never asked Miss Gerard."
"Did you flirt with her?"
"I suppose you give it that name. I was attracted towards her, of course, but I soon found that she had no depth; she would cling to me, I could not shake her off. I took her to Mayfield this morning; she asked to go, I could not refuse the girl. She has made several pretty things for me; I showed my appreciation by buying pieces of jewelry for her; was that flirting? I never kissed her, or said I loved her, or talked any nonsense to her."
"Of course not. You do not know how."
"I know how to talk sense, Miss Tessa."
"Are you asking me because your mother loves me so much?"
"Is it so hard for you to believe that I love you?"
"Yes," she said, her eyes filling at his tone, "I can not believe it. It is as if you had put both hands around my throat and choked my breath away and then said politely, "Excuse me.""
"Is my love so little to you as that?"
"I have not seen it yet; you _say_ you love me, that is all."
"Is not that enough?"
"It can not be enough, for it does not satisfy me. I have believed so long that you despised me; one word from you can not change it all."
"Is there something wrong about me?"
"Wrong? Oh, no. How could there be? I do believe that you are a _good_ man."
"You think that you can not be happy with me?" he asked patiently.
"I am happy enough always, everywhere; I was as happy as a bird in a tree before I knew you; you set me to crying for something, and then held out your hand empty."
"I love you; isn"t that full enough?"
"No, that is not full enough. I want you to _be_ all that I believed you to be. I shall not be satisfied till then. When you think of me you may think of me hungering and thirsting for you to be all that I can dream of your being-all that G.o.d is willing to make you."
The light had died out of his eyes.
"Do you know some one that does satisfy you?"
"I know good people, but they do not satisfy me."