“I’d like to give _you_ a better proof than this of what you’ve done. For, Florence, you have done everything!” That was what he was saying.
She put up her hand, warning the words away. “I don’t need proof of what you can do.”
“_Don’t_ you?” he questioned, looking at her. “Haven’t you begun lately to suspect I wasn’t worth what you’ve given?”
“Tony!” her reproach was a cry. “You know—I couldn’t! But I have taken more than I have given!” An insane passion for confession was on her. But he was following his one idea.
“Then why have you avoided me so lately?” She had been expecting it.
“Have we ever been much together among people?”
He looked at her, baffled, but with something dogged and determined in his face. She had never seen such a look on it before. And she was going to refuse what he was about to ask. How broad his shoulders bulked on the glare of glass!
“Do you regret what you said at the dance, then?” he persisted.
“No!” She said it with such vehement impulse that he straightened, took a step toward her.
“But,” he gloomed at her, “it is if there’s never anything else!”
“There will be,” she said steadily; “but _if_ there never were, who was ever loved for his successes!”
“Florence,” he said, “you are—you—oh, I don’t deserve it!” He took her gently by the shoulders. “_Will_ you marry me?”
The question was between them, but left each cold. She was a long time looking out through the begonia leaves before she answered—“No.”
His hands dropped from her shoulders. She saw with a sort of shock how sure he had been of her! He could hardly take in what she meant.
“Do you remember what you said?” His voice, coming after a minute, sounded at a distance to her.
“Because—” her voice broke. She waited a minute, fighting for self-control; then went on more quietly—“because you don’t love me, Tony.”
She startled him. “Florence,” he said earnestly, “you wrong us both. You know you’ve always been the only one!”
“I only know,” she said, “that you do not love me now—because you once did. Think! Am I what I was to you six months ago? Then think of marriage! A lifetime! You will be still a young man when I am an old woman. It was inevitable this should end.”
“But why do you talk like this?” He had her by the shoulders again. “What has age to do with it? You knew that three nights ago as well as now. It’s an excuse! Don’t you love me?”