"Go home, Percy," she said. "I'm going out,—and I'm late already. Thanks for the orchids. Don't bother to send any more. It's just a waste of money, old fellow. I sha'n't marry you. I sha'n't marry any one except the man with whom I fall desperately, horribly in love,—and I'm not going to fall in love with you, so run away." "You weren't in love with old man Thorpe, were you?" he demanded, flushing angrily. "I haven't the right to be offended by that beastly remark, Percy," she said quietly; "and yet I don't think you ought to have said it to me." "It was meant only to remind you that it won't be necessary for you to fall desperately, horribly in love with me," he explained, and was suddenly conscious of being very uncomfortable for the first time in his life. He did not like the expression in her eyes. Her shoulders drooped a little. "It isn't very comforting to feel that any one of my would-be husbands could be satisfied to get along without being loved by me. No doubt I shall be asked by others besides you, Percy. I hope you do not voice the sentiments of all the rest of them." "I'm sorry I said it," he said, and seemed a little bewildered immediately afterwards. He really couldn't make himself out. He went away a few minutes later, vaguely convinced that perhaps it wouldn't be worth while to ask her, after all. This was a new, strange Anne, and it would hurt to be refused by her. He had never thought of it in just that way—before. "So that is the price they put upon me, is it?" Anne said to herself. She was regarding herself rather humbly in the mirror as she pinned on her hat. "I am still expected to marry without loving the man who takes me. It isn't to be exacted of me. Don't they credit me with a capacity for loving? What do they think I am? What do they think my blood is made of, and the flesh on my bones? Do they think that because I am beautiful I can love no one but myself? Don't they think I'm human? How can any one look at me without feeling that I'd rather love than be loved? The poor fools! Any woman can be loved. What we all want more than anything else is to _love_. And I love—I _do_ love! And I _am_ beloved. And all the rest of my life I shall love; I shall gloat over the fact that I love; I shall love, love, _love_ with all that there is in me, all that there is in my body and my soul. The poor fools." And all that was in her body and her soul was prepared to give itself to the man who loved her. She wanted him to have her for his own. She pitied him even more than she pitied herself.