Eloise sighed; then after a while she answered. "Of course, Jack, she has said that always, ever since we were children, and being children, why we couldn’t say anything, for our very home and living depended on it. But Jack, I see it all now. I’m ashamed of it—though I couldn’t help it—this—this awful buy-and-sell way, this bartering me because I am poor and an orphan, this closing the chance of the great dream of my life for me—that one dream which every woman loves more than life, Jack. It’s—why, I’ve treated you so badly. I wonder that you care for me at all. But—oh, Jack, I had such ideas of love, and now to be mated off like her cattle!" "I know it," I said, "only you were never as mean as you say. Young as we were I felt it, too, and that is why I didn’t blame you. But it never made any difference with me, Eloise—I have loved you always, and I’m as proud of you now as anyone can be." "Oh, you dear boy," said she. She laid her head upon my shoulder, then reached up and kissed me on the cheek. She was silent and I was never so happy, with her head lying there, and the perfume of her hair in my face. At last she laughed. "Jack, you neglected me shamefully while you were away, studying." "I wrote you a love letter every week!" I exclaimed. "But people in love write to each other every day," she said. "You don’t really love me, Jack!" "Eloise, I couldn’t write every day, but I thought of you the last thing every night before I went to sleep, and I slept with your picture under my pillow, and I used to play that we were married, and that my dressing gown in the chair was you." "O, Jack," and she clasped my hand in hers, "you dear boy! And I must say I never dreamed you’d be so big and handsome!" I seized her hands, holding them in mine: "And let me tell you, Eloise, you almost took my breath when I saw you for the first time this morning!" There was a long silence before Eloise spoke. "Jack, what are we going to do about—about—Aunt Lucretia?" "Why, I tell you there is nothing to do but to do as she says—marry—you know how she has planned this all her life. It would break her heart; and mine," I added softly. "Listen now," said Eloise earnestly. "Jack, that is nonsense. I don’t love you that way nor you me. I don’t care what she says. Love is made from higher, nobler motives, and true marriages should be made in heaven as they say. I," she went on with a sigh, "Jack, I have given up; I was not made for love like that—as you want to love me. I am too selfish, I care too much for the fine world around me, for my own self, for pleasure. I love to will, to conquer, Jack. I don’t want to love, to give myself up to any man and his whims unless—" "Unless what?" I asked eagerly.