"And as if I could help being grateful. It is so great a thing! For you to wish that. There could be nothing greater. I can never forget it. You must never think that I could forget it ... I--you know, Mr. Gore, that I am not like most girls, being so very ignorant. I have never read a novel. Even the nuns told me that some of them are beautiful and not bad at all, but the contrary. Only, I have never read any. I know they are full of this matter--love and marriage. They are great things, and concern nearly all the men and women in the world, but not quite all. I do not think I ever said to myself, 'They don't concern _you_.' I do not think I ever thought about it, but if I had, I believe I should have known that that matter would never concern me. Yet I do not want you to misunderstand--Oh, if I could make you understand, please! I know that it is a great thing, love and marriage, God's way for most men and women. And I think it a wonderful, great thing that a man should wish that for himself and me; should think that with me he could be happier than in any other way. Of course, I never thought anyone would feel that. It is a thing to thank you for, and always I shall thank you...." "Is it impossible?" She paused an infinitesimal moment and said: "Just that. Impossible." "Would it be fair to ask why 'impossible'?" "Not unfair at all. But perhaps I cannot answer. I will try to answer. When you told me what you wanted it pleased me because you wanted it, and it hurt me because I (who had never thought about it before) knew at once that it was not possible to do what you wanted, and I would so much rather be able to please you." "You will never be able to do anything else but please me. Your refusing cannot change your being yourself." Gore could not worry her with demands for reasons. He knew there was no one else. He knew she was not incapable of loving--for he knew, better than ever, that she loved greatly and deeply all whom she knew. Nay, he knew that she loved _him_, among them, but more than any of them. And yet he saw that she was simply right. What he had asked was "impossible, just that." Better than himself she would love no one, and in the fashion of a wife she would love no one, ever. Yet, he asked her a question, not to harry her but because of her father. "Perhaps you have resolved never to marry," he said. "I never thought of it. But, as soon as I knew what you were saying, I knew I should never marry anyone. It was not a resolution. It was just a certainty. Alas! our resolutions are not certainties." "But," Gore said gently, feeling it necessary to prepare her, "your father may wish you to marry." She paused, dubiously, and her brown skin reddened a little. "You think so? Yes, he may," she answered in a troubled voice; for she feared her father, more even than she was conscious of. "I think he does," Gore said, not watching the poor girl's troubled face. "He wants me to marry you?" she inquired anxiously.