"I am going to say one thing, nevertheless; and will remain for you to make it a thing hard to be remembered, or the other kind. Will you take what there is of me and make what you can of it?" She laughed in his face. "No, my dear David; no, no, no." And after a little pause: "How deliciously transparent you are, to be sure!" He would have been less than a man if his self-love had not been touched in its most sensitive part. "I am glad if it amuses you," he frowned. "Only I meant it in all seriousness." "No, you didn't; you only thought you did," she contradicted, and the brown eyes were still laughing at him. "Let me tell you what you did mean. You are pleased to think that I have helped you--that an obligation has been incurred; and you meant to pay your debt like a man and a gentleman in the only coin a woman is supposed to recognize." "But if I should say that you are misinterpreting the motive?" he suggested. "It would make your nice little speech a perjury instead of a simple untruth, and I should say no, again, on other, and perhaps better, grounds." "Name them," he said shortly. "I will, David, though I am neither a stick nor a stone to do it without wincing. You love another woman with all your heart and soul, and you know it." "Well? You see I am neither admitting nor denying." "As if you needed to!" she scoffed. "But don't interrupt me, please. You said I might take what there is of you and make what I can of it: I might make you anything and everything in the world, David, except that which a woman craves most in a husband--a lover." His eyes grew dark. "I wish I knew how much that word means to you, Portia." "It means just as much to me as it does to every woman who has ever drawn the breath of life in a passionate world, David. But that isn't all. Leaving Miss Brentwood entirely out of the question, you'd be miserably unhappy." "Why should I?" "Because I shouldn't be able to realize a single one of your ideals. I know what they are--what you will expect in a wife. I could make you a rich man, a successful man, as the world measures success, and perhaps I could even give you love: after the first flush of youth is past, the heavenly-affinity sentiment loses its hold and a woman comes to know that if she cares to try hard enough she can love any man who will be thoughtful and gentle, and whose habits of life are not hopelessly at war with her own. But that kind of love doesn't breed love. Your vanity would pique itself for a little while, and then you would know the curse of unsought love and murder me in your heart a thousand times a day. No, David, I have read you to little purpose if these are the things you will ask of the woman who takes your name and becomes the mother of your children." She had risen and was standing beside his chair, with her hand lightly touching his shoulder. "Will you go now? There are others coming, and--"