"I have been very happy in loving you," she faltered; "I have promised you all there is of myself. And you have already had my best self. The rest--whatever it is--whatever happens to me--I have promised--so that there will be nothing of this girl called Valerie West which is not all yours--all, all--every thought, Louis, every pulse-beat--mind, soul, body.... But no future day had been set; I had thought of none as yet. Still--since I knew I was to be to you what I am to be, I have been very busy preparing for it--mind, soul, my little earthly possessions, my personal affairs in their small routine.... No bride in your world, busy with her trousseau, has been a happier dreamer than have I, Louis. You don't know how true I have tried to be to myself, and to the truth as I understand it--as true as I have been to you in thought and deed.... And, somehow, what threatened--a moment since--frightens me, humiliates me--" She lifted her head and looked up at him with dimmed eyes: "You were untrue to yourself, Louis--to your own idea of truth. And you were untrue to me. And for the first time I look at you, ashamed and shamed." "Yes," he said, very white. "Why did you offer our love such an insult?" she asked. He made no answer. "Was it because, in your heart, you hold a girl lightly who promised to give herself to you for your own sake, renouncing the marriage vows?" "No! Good God--" "Then--is it because you do not yet love me enough? For I shall not give myself to you until you do." He hung his head. "I think that is it," she said, sorrowfully. "No. I'm no good," he said. "And that's the truth, Valerie." A dark flush stained his face and he turned it away, sitting there in silence, his tense clasp tightening on the arms of the chair. Then he said, still not meeting her eyes: "Whatever your beliefs are you practice them; you are true to your convictions, loyal to yourself. I am only a miserable, rotten specimen of man who is true to nothing--not even to himself. I'm not worth your trouble, Valerie." "Louis!" "Well, what am I?" he demanded in fierce disgust. "I have told you that I believe in the conventions--and I violate every one of them. I'm a spectacle for gods and men!" His face was stern with self-disgust: he forced himself to meet her gaze, wincing under it; but he went on: "I know well enough that I deserve your contempt; I've acquired plenty of self-contempt already. But I _do_ love you, God knows how or in what manner, but I love you, cur that I am--and I respect you--oh, more that you understand, Valerie. And if I ask your mercy on such a man as I am, it is not because I deserve it." "My mercy, Louis?" She rose to her knees and laid both hands on his shoulders.