"Why?" he said.
"See," she said, "how you waste yourself! You might be ill, you might
die, and I never know--be no more then than if I had never known you."
"And if we married?" he asked.
"At any rate, I could prevent you wasting yourself and being a prey to
other women--like--like Clara."
"A prey?" he repeated, smiling.
She bowed her head in silence. He lay feeling his despair come up again.
"I'm not sure," he said slowly, "that marriage would be much good."
"I only think of you," she replied.
"I know you do. But--you love me so much, you want to put me in your
pocket. And I should die there smothered."
She bent her head, put her fingers between her lips, while the
bitterness surged up in her heart.
"And what will you do otherwise?" she asked.
"I don't know--go on, I suppose. Perhaps I shall soon go abroad."
The despairing doggedness in his tone made her go on her knees on the
rug before the fire, very near to him. There she crouched as if she were
crushed by something, and could not raise her head.
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