“Never once have I really meant marrying you,” she insisted. “Never once. I fell in love with you from the first. But when you seemed a successful man, I told myself I wouldn’t. I was love-sick for you, and you were so stupid, I came near it then. But I knew I wasn’t good enough. What could I have been to you? A woman with bad habits and bad associations, a woman smirched. And what could I do for you or be to you? If I wasn’t good enough to be a rich man’s wife, I’m certainly not good enough to be a poor one’s. Forgive me for talking sense to you now, but I wanted to tell you this somehow.” She stopped at my gesture. I sat up, and the canoe rocked with my movement. “I don’t care,” I said. “I want to marry you and make you my wife!” “No,” she said, “don’t spoil things. That is impossible!” “Impossible!” “Think! I can’t do my own hair! Do you mean you will get me a maid?” “Good God!” I cried, disconcerted beyond measure, “won’t you learn to do your own hair for me? Do you mean to say you can love a man—” She flung out her hands at me. “Don’t spoil it,” she cried. “I have given you all I have, I have given you all I can. If I could do it, if I was good enough to do it, I would. But I am a woman spoilt and ruined, dear, and you are a ruined man. When we are making love we’re lovers—but think of the gulf between us in habits and ways of thought, in will and training, when we are not making love. Think of it—and don’t think of it! Don’t think of it yet. We have snatched some hours. We still may have some hours!” She suddenly knelt forward toward me, with a glowing darkness in her eyes. “Who cares if it upsets?” she cried. “If you say another word I will kiss you. And go to the bottom clutching you. “I’m not afraid of that. I’m not a bit afraid of that. I’ll die with you. Choose a death, and I’ll die with you—readily. Do listen to me! I love you. I shall always love you. It’s because I love you that I won’t go down to become a dirty familiar thing with you amidst the grime. I’ve given all I can. I’ve had all I can.... Tell me,” and she crept nearer, “have I been like the dusk to you, like the warm dusk? Is there magic still? Listen to the ripple of water from your paddle. Look at the warm evening light in the sky. Who cares if the canoe upsets? Come nearer to me. Oh, my love! come near! So.” She drew me to her and our lips met. III I asked her to marry me once again. It was our last morning together, and we had met very early, about sunrise, knowing that we were to part. No sun shone that day. The sky was overcast, the morning chilly and lit by a clear, cold, spiritless light. A heavy dampness in the air verged close on rain. When I think of that morning, it has always the quality of greying ashes wet with rain.