"No wonder he despised me," she said to herself, and she turned back to Mr. Revington trying to forget Guy Kenmore, for she was now ashamed of the willfulness and spite she had displayed before him. "Will you be my wife, Irene?" repeated her adoring lover. "I cannot, Mr. Revington. I do not love you," she answered, in a gentler tone than she had used to him before. He threw himself impetuously at her feet and grasped her hands. "Let me teach you to love me," he cried, abjectly. Her crimson lips curled in faint scorn. "I could not learn the lesson," she replied. "You are not the kind of man whom I could love," and again the handsome face of Guy Kenmore rose before her mind's eye. "Why do I think of _him_?" she asked herself. "What sort of a man _could_ you love, Miss Berlin?" he asked, almost despairingly, and again the proud, handsome, indifferent face of Guy Kenmore rose tormentingly before her. "Why do I think of _him_?" she asked herself again, in wonder, and forgetting to answer the question of the kneeling man. She had drawn her hand away from his frenzied clasp, and now he gently plucked at her dress to draw her attention. "Irene, my love, my darling, my beautiful queen, take pity on me, and do not reject me," he cried, pleadingly. "Tell me what manner of man you could love, and I will make myself over by your model. I could do anything, be anything, for your sweet sake!" Again the blue eyes looked at him in faint scorn, and the red lips curled. "Do get up from the ground, Mr. Revington," she said. "It is quite undignified; I dislike it very much." He was too much carried away by his passion to observe the slight inflection of scorn in her tone. "No, I will not rise," he answered. "I will kneel at your feet, like the veriest slave, until you retract your cruel refusal, and give me leave to hope." "But I cannot do so," she answered, more gently. "Do be reasonable, and drop the subject, Mr. Revington. It is quite impossible, this that you ask. I do not love you, and I cannot be your wife." "You might learn to love me," he persisted, almost sullenly. "Never. You do not realize my ideal," the girl replied, with an unconscious blush. "Tell me what your ideal is like, Irene," said her kneeling lover. "I have read some lines that fit him," she replied, half dreamily, half to herself, and still with that soft blush on her beautiful face. "I will repeat them to you." Yet she seemed to have forgotten him, as she fixed her eyes on the blue, rolling waves of the Arno, and the words fell like music from her beautiful lips: "He to whom I give affection Must have princely mein and guise. If devotion lay below me, I would stoop not for the prize Bend down to me very lowly, But bend always from above; I would scorn where I could pity, I must honor where I love.