And Paul, still shaken by the intoxication of her lips and hair and clinging pressure of her body, looked at her intensely with the eyes of a man's longing. But he said: "Nothing can alter what I said a few minutes ago--not all the passion and love in the world. You and I are not of the stuff, thank God, to cut ourselves adrift and bury ourselves in some romantic island and give up our lives to a dream. We're young. We're strong. We both know that life is a different sort of thing altogether from that. We're not of the sort that shirks its responsibilities. We've got to live in the world, you and I, and do the world's work." "Parfaitement, mon bien aime." She smiled at him serenely. "I would not bury myself with you in an Ionian island for more than two months in a year for anything on earth. On my part, it would be the unforgivable sin. No woman has the right, however much she loves him, to ruin a man, any more than a man has the right to ruin a woman. But if you won't marry me, I'm perfectly willing to spend two months a year in an Ionian island with you," and she looked at him, very proud and fearless. Paul took her by the shoulders and shook her, more roughly than he realized. "Sophie, don't tempt me to a madness that we should both regret." She laughed, wincing yet thrilled, under the rude handling, and freed herself. "But what more can a woman offer the man who loves her--that is to say if he does love her?" "I not love you?" He threw up his hands--"Dear God!" She waved him away and retreated a step or two, still laughing, as he advanced. "Then why won't you marry me? You're afraid." "Yes," he cried. "It's the only thing on this earth that I'm afraid of." "Why?" "The sneers. First you'd hate them. Then you'd hate and despise me." She grew serious. "Calme-toi, my dearest. Just consider things practically. Who is going to sneer at a great man?" "I the first," replied Paul bitterly, his self-judgment warped by the new knowledge of the vanities and unsubstantialities on which his life had been founded. "I a great man, indeed!" "A very great man. A brilliant man I knew long ago. A brave man I have known, in spite of my pride, these last two or three awful weeks. But last night I knew you were a great man--a very great man. Ah, mon Paul. La canaille, whether it lives in Whitechapel or Park Lane, what does it matter to us?" "The riff-raff, unfortunately," said Paul, "forms the general judgment of society."