"I can't understand it,--no man could, I suppose,--but I do believe it. Mrs. Elmore has often told me the same thing." "And this--letter--it--means marriage." "That and nothing else. The man who wrote it would consider himself cruelly wronged if you accepted his attentions without the distinct purpose of marrying him." She drew a deep breath. "I shall have to ask you to write a refusal for me." But still she did not give him the letter. "Have you made up your mind to that?" "I can't make up my mind to anything else." Elmore walked unhappily back and forth across the room. "I have seen something of international marriages since I've been in Europe," he said. "Sometimes they succeed; but generally they're wretched failures. The barriers of different race, language, education, religion,--they're terrible barriers. It's very hard for a man and woman to understand each other at the best; with these differences added, it's almost a hopeless case." "Yes; that's what Mrs. Elmore said." "And suppose you were married to an Austrian officer stationed in Italy. You would have _no_ society outside of the garrison. Every other human creature that looked at you would hate you. And if you were ordered to some of those half barbaric principalities,--Moldavia or Wallachia, or into Hungary or Bohemia,--everywhere your husband would be an instrument for the suppression of an alien or disaffected population. What a fate for an American girl!" "If he were good," said the girl, replying in the abstract, "she needn't care." "If he were good, you needn't care. No. And he might leave the Austrian service, and go with you to America, as he hints. What could he do there? He might get an appointment in our army, though that's not so easy now; or he might go to Patmos, and live upon your friends till he found something to do in civil life." Lily began a laugh. "Why, Professor Elmore, _I_ don't want to marry him! What in the world are you arguing with me for?" "Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I oughtn't to let these considerations weigh as a feather in the balance if you are at all--at all--ahem! excuse me!--attached to him. That, of course, outweighs everything else." "But I'm _not_!" cried the girl "How _could_ I be? I've only met him twice. It would be perfectly ridiculous. I _know_ I'm not. I ought to know that if I know anything." Years afterward it occurred to Elmore, when he awoke one night, and his mind without any reason flew back to this period in Venice, that she might have been referring the point to him for decision. But now it only seemed to him that she was adding force to her denial; and he observed nothing hysterical in the little laugh she gave. "Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I'll write now, if you will give me his letter."