"Because you are what you are--and I--oh! how can I say it even to you? I am so ashamed. I have been thrown at your head from the very first--no, I have no right to say that. How I hate everything I say! You must understand; I am sure you do. Well, in the beginning I couldn't bear to speak to you, because I knew--what was hoped--and I seemed to see and hear it in every look and word. It hurt me more than I ever can tell you. The same sort of thing had happened before, but I had never minded it then. I suppose all mothers are like that; it's natural enough, when you come to think, and I'm sure I never resented it before. I wouldn't have minded it in your case either; I wouldn't have minded anything if I hadn't----" The words would not come. "Hadn't what?" he said. "If I hadn't liked you--off my own bat!" "But if you really do, my glorious girl, surely that fixes it? We have nothing to do with anybody else. What does it matter how they take it?" "It matters to my pride." "I don't see where your pride comes in." "Of course you don't; you are not behind the scenes. And I can't make you see. I'm not going to give my own people away to that extent, not even to you. But--I can just picture my mother's face if we went in this very minute and told her we were engaged! She would fall upon both our necks!" "That wouldn't matter," said Jack stolidly. "That would be all right." "It would be dreadful--dreadful. I couldn't bear it when I know that yesterday----" She checked herself firmly. "Well, what of yesterday?" "It would have been quite a different thing." "What! if I'd spoken then?" "I--think so." "You would have said----" "I should have found out what your trouble was. You would have told me everything. And then--and then----" He leant still further forward. "If you had wanted me very much----" "I _do_ want you very much." "I should have found it easier to say 'yes'"--the word was hardly audible--"than I ever shall now!" "But why, Olivia? Tell me why!" "You force it from me, word by word," complained the girl. "Then let me see. I think I begin to see. You like me in myself almost well enough to marry me. Well, thank God for that much! But you don't want to marry the Duke of St. Osmund's, because you're mortally afraid of what people will say. You think they'll say you're doing it for the main chance. And so they will--and so they may! They wouldn't say it, and you wouldn't think it, of any other man in my position; no, it's because I'm not fit for my billet, that's how it is! Not fit for it, and not fit for you; so they'd naturally think you were marrying me for what I'd got, and that you couldn't bear. Ah, yes, I see hard enough; it's as plain as a pikestaff now!"