He talked and pleaded for a long time, and Bella listened with lowered eyelids, and lowered head, and let her hand lie locked in his, and did not answer his specious arguments by one straight outspoken denial. She paltered with this tempter, as she had paltered with temptation all her life, always choosing the road she liked best. She said neither yes nor no. It was an awful thing that he was asking her to do. No more nor less than to surrender honour, social status, everything for his sake, to go to Italy with him, and live a gay, unfettered life there, among people who, according to his showing, would be willing to accept her as his wife. He painted the picture of that ideal Italian life so vividly that all the hideousness of his proposal was lost sight of under that bright colouring. ‘Remember, dearest, I shall have my sacrifice to make too,’ he said. ‘I must leave the army. And I shall almost break my poor mother’s heart, for she has plans for my marriage which she has cherished ever since I was at Eton. But I could sacrifice a great deal more than that for your sake.’ ‘Do not talk of it any more,’ said Bella, in a frightened voice. ‘It is too awful. I like you--yes,’ as he drew her face round to him so that her eyes reluctantly met his,--‘yes, very much. I hardly think’--falteringly and in tears--‘I could go on living if you went away, and I were not to see you any more; but what you are asking is horrible--to defy everybody--to give up everything--to be pointed at and spoken of as something utterly lost and wretched--a thing to be spurned by other women--women who are my inferior in everything--except that one wicked act. Why, my very housemaids would look down upon me. No, I could not be so degraded. I could not sink so low.’ ‘I see,’ said Captain Standish. ‘You love yourself and your good name better than you love me. You were not ashamed to sell yourself to Piper. The world applauds that kind of bargain. But you are not generous enough to give yourself to the man you love.’ He had let go her hand, and was walking with long quick steps backwards and forwards across the deep bay, like a lion in a cage. Bella thought there was something grand and noble about him in this lofty rage. She loved him all the more for the hard things he said to her, since his hard speeches proved the intensity of his love. ‘You are very cruel,’ she said, piteously. ‘I am very much in earnest. I thought to find in you something better and grander than the shallow conventional woman of society who only plays with hearts, who wants to walk through the deep waters of passion without wetting her feet. You talk of sinking very low--of degradation. Where is the degradation in the life I offer you--the fair sweet unfettered life that poets have loved ever since the world began?’ ‘You would be tired of an idle life in Italy,’ said Bella.