"When you whisper like that, it takes my breath away.... Jenny are you ever going to be more to me even than you are now?"
"Well, everything that a woman can be to a man. You see I'm an artist, and an artist longs for the completion of a great work. My love for you is the biggest thing in my life so far, and I long to complete it. Don't you understand what I mean?"
"Kiss me," she said. "I can't explain. Don't let's talk about it any more."
"I can't understand women," Maurice declared.
She smiled; but in the smile there was more of sadness than mirth.
"Why waste time?" he demanded passionately. "God knows we have little enough time. Jenny, I warn you, I beg you not to waste time. You're making a mistake. Like all girls, you're keeping one foot in a sort of washy respectability."
"Don't go on," Jenny said. "I've told you I will one day."
"Why not come abroad with me if you're afraid of what your people will say?"
"I couldn't. Not while my mother was alive."
"Well, don't do that; but still it's easy enough not--to waste time. Your mother need never find out. I'm not a fool."
"Besides," she added, "I don't want to--not yet. Can't we be happy like we have been? I will one day."
"You can't play with love," Maurice warned her.
"I'm not. I'm more in earnest than what you are."
"But I am. Supposing if you got tired of me?"
"Ah, but that's where men are funny. All of a sudden you might take a sudden fancy to another girl. And then what about me? What should I do?"
"It comes to this," he argued. "You don't trust me yet. You don't believe in me. Good heavens, what can I do to show you I'm sincere?"
"Can't you wait a little while?" she gently asked.
"Well, not for a long time?" Jenny pleaded.
"I won't even promise that. You see I honestly think you're making a mistake--a mistake for which you'll be very sorry one day. I wish you understood my character better."
"All men are the same." She sighed out the generalization.
"That's absurd, my dear girl. I might as well say all women are the same."
"Isn't it rather soppy to go as far as you have with me, and not go farther?" Maurice spoke tentatively.
"Oh, _I've_ properly joined the soppy brigade. I did think I was different, but I'm not. I'm well in the first line."