Nicolete looked at me strangely. 'Troth, it was a strange way to make love, I knew. "And what else?" she asked somewhat coldly. "Well, then, though it's not a thing one cares to speak of, I'm a poor man--" Nicolete broke through my sentence with a scornful exclamation. "You," I continued straight on,--"well, you have been accustomed to a certain spaciousness and luxury of life. This it would be out of my power to continue for you. These are real reasons, very real reasons, dear Nicolete, though you may not think so now. The law of the world in these matters is very right. For the rich and the poor to marry is to risk, terribly risk, the very thing they would marry for--their love. Love is better an unmarried than a married regret." Nicolete was silent again. "Think of your little woodland chalet, and your great old trees in the park,--you couldn't live without them. I have, at most, but one tree worth speaking of to offer you--" I purposely waived the glamour which my old garden had for my mind, and which I wouldn't have exchanged for fifty parks. "Trees!" retorted Nicolete,--"what are trees?" "Ah, my dear girl, they are a good deal,--particularly when they are genealogical, as my one tree is not." "Aucassin," she said suddenly, almost fiercely, "can you really jest? Tell me this,--do you love me?" "I love you," I said simply; "and it is just because I love you so much that I have talked as I have done. No man situated as I am who loved you could have talked otherwise." "Well, I have heard it all, weighed it all," said Nicolete, presently; "and to me it is but as thistledown against the love within my heart. Will you cast away a woman who loves you for theories? You know you love me, know I love you. We should have our trials, our ups and downs, I know; but surely it is by those that true love learns how to grow more true and strong. Oh, I cannot argue! Tell me again, do you love me?" And there she broke down and fell sobbing into my arms. I consoled her as best I might, and presently she looked up at me through her tears. "Tell me again," she said, "that you love me, just as you did yesterday, and promise never to speak of all those cruel things again. Ah! have you thought of the kind of men you would give me up to?" At that I confess I shuddered, and I gave her the required assurance. "And you won't be wise and reasonable and ridiculous any more?" "No," I answered; adding in my mind, "not, at all events, for the present." CHAPTER XI HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY Had we only been able to see a day into the future, we might have spared ourselves this agonising, for all our doubts and fears were suddenly dispersed in an entirely unexpected manner. Happily these interior problems are not infrequently resolved by quite exterior forces.