'After this, Lois,' he said, taking my hand in his--and I was weak enough, for a moment, to let it lie there--'you _cannot_ say No to me!' Oh, how I longed to fling myself upon him and cry out, 'No, Harold, I cannot! I love you too dearly!' But his future and Marmaduke Ashurst's half million restrained me: for his sake and for my own I held myself in courageously. Though, indeed, it needed some courage and self-control. I withdrew my hand slowly. 'Do you remember,' I said, 'you asked me that first day at Schlangenbad'--it was an epoch to me now, that first day--'whether I was mediaeval or modern? And I answered, "Modern, I hope." And you said, "That's well!"-- You see, I don't forget the least things you say to me. Well, because I am modern--'my lips trembled and belied me--'I can answer you No. I can even now refuse you. The old-fashioned girl, the mediaeval girl, would have held that because she saved your life (if I _did_ save your life, which is a matter of opinion) she was bound to marry you. But _I_ am modern, and I see things differently. If there were reasons at Schlangenbad which made it impracticable for me to accept you--though my heart pleaded hard--I do not deny it--those reasons cannot have disappeared merely because you have chosen to fall over a precipice, and I have pulled you up again. My decision was founded, you see, not on passing accidents of situation, but on permanent considerations. Nothing has happened in the last three days to affect those considerations. We are still ourselves: you, rich; I, a penniless adventuress. I could not accept you when you asked me at Schlangenbad. On just the same grounds, I cannot accept you now. I do not see how the unessential fact that I made myself into a winch to pull you up the cliff, and that I am still smarting for it----' He looked me all over comically. 'How severe we are!' he cried, in a bantering tone. 'And how extremely Girtony! A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, by Lois Cayley! What a pity we didn't take a professor's chair. My child that isn't _you_! It's not yourself at all! It's an attempt to be unnaturally and unfemininely reasonable.' Logic fled. I broke down utterly. 'Harold,' I cried, rising, 'I love you! I admit I love you! But I will never marry you--while you have those thousands.' 'I haven't got them yet!' 'Or the chance of inheriting them.' He smothered my hand with kisses--for I withdrew my face. 'If you admit you love me,' he cried, quite joyously, 'then all is well. When once a woman admits that, the rest is but a matter of time--and, Lois, I can wait a thousand years for you.' 'Not in my case,' I answered through my tears. 'Not in my case, Harold! I am a modern woman, and what I say I mean. I will renew my promise. If ever you are poor and friendless, come to me; I am yours. Till then, don't harrow me by asking me the impossible!'