"I am so sorry. We could be friends of a sort, I think, but I can't marry you." "You have never told me why." "Shall I tell you truly, literally--brutally?" "Of course!" "Then it is not only because I don't love you--that there is not for me the common temptation to enter a form of bondage which, as I see it, is hateful. That is enough, but it is not all; it is not even the principal thing. It is"--she hesitated--"it is that--that we are different, you and I. It would-be preposterous," she went on hastily, "not to admit that you are infinitely superior--of course--and cleverer and wiser and more important in the world. And that will make me absurd in your eyes when I tell you that my whole life is wrapped up in a sense which I cannot see or feel that you have at all. You have much--oh, a great deal--outside of it, and I have nothing. My life is swayed in obedience to laws that you do not even know of. You can hardly be my friend, completely. As your wife I should suffer and you would suffer, in a false position which could never be altered." She paused and looked at him seriously, and he felt that she believed what she had said. She had, at all events, given him full permission to go. And he was as far from being able to avail of himself of it as he had been before--further, for every moment those slender fingers rested in his made it more impossible to relinquish them, for always. So, he persisted, with a bitter sense of failure that would not wholly, honestly recognize itself. "Is Golightly Ticke your friend--completely?" "More--pardon me--than you could ever be," she answered him, undaunted by the contempt in his tone. There was silence for a moment between them. Elfrida's wide-eyed gaze wandered appreciatively over the dusky interior, which for the man beside her barely existed. "What a lot of English character there is here," she said softly. "How dignified it is, and conscientious, and restrained!" It was as if she had not spoken. Cardiff stared with knit brows into the insoluble problem she had presented to him a moment longer. "_How_ are we so different, Elfrida?" he broke out passionately. "You are a woman and I am a man; the world has dealt with us, educated us, differently, and I am older than I dare say I ought to be to hope for your love. But these are not differences that count, whatever their results may be. It seems to me trivial to speak of such things in this connection, but we like very much the same books, the same people. I grant you I don't know anything about pictures; but surely," he pleaded, "these are not the things that cut a man off from the happiness of a lifetime!" "I'm afraid--" she began, and then she broke off suddenly. "I _am_ sorry--sorrier than I have ever been before, I think. I should have liked so well to keep your friendship; it is the most chivalrous I know. But if you feel like--like this about it I suppose I must not. Shall we say good-by here and now? Truly I am sorry."