" he went on, "but just of being infernally in love with you. If one's strong one loves only the more strongly."
"There's a good deal in that;" and indeed our young lady felt the force of it—felt it thrown off, into the vast of truth and poetry, as practically a bait to her imagination. But she promptly came round. "Think of me or not, as you find most possible; only leave me alone."
"Until when?"
"Well, for a year or two."
"Which do you mean? Between one year and two there's all the difference in the world."
"Call it two then," said Isabel with a studied effect of eagerness.
"And what shall I gain by that?" her friend asked with no sign of wincing.
"You'll have obliged me greatly."
"And what will be my reward?"
"Do you need a reward for an act of generosity?"
"Yes, when it involves a great sacrifice."
"There's no generosity without some sacrifice. Men don't understand such things. If you make the sacrifice you'll have all my admiration."
"I don't care a cent for your admiration—not one straw, with nothing to show for it. When will you marry me? That's the only question."
"Never—if you go on making me feel only as I feel at present."
"What do I gain then by not trying to make you feel otherwise?"
"You'll gain quite as much as by worrying me to death!" Caspar Goodwood bent his eyes again and gazed a while into the crown of his hat. A deep flush overspread his face; she could see her sharpness had at last penetrated. This immediately had a value—classic, romantic, redeeming, what did she know? for her; "the strong man in pain" was one of the categories of the human appeal, little charm as he might exert in the given case. "Why do you make me say such things to you?" she cried in a trembling voice. "I only want to be gentle—to be thoroughly kind. It's not delightful to me to feel people care for me and yet to have to try and reason them out of it. I think others also ought to be considerate; we have each to judge for ourselves. I know you're considerate, as much as you can be; you've good reasons for what
