 may know you
are enjoying your life. It is agreed, isn't it?«
    She held her hand to him, but Peak drew away, his face averted.
    »How can you give me the pain of refusing such an offer?« he exclaimed, with
remonstrance which was all but anger. »You know the thing is utterly impossible.
I should be ridiculous if I argued about it for a moment.«
    »I can't see that it is impossible.«
    »Then you must take my word for it. But I have no right to speak to you in
that way,« he added, more kindly, seeing the profound humiliation which fell
upon her. »You meant to come to my aid at a time when I seemed to you lonely and
miserable. It was a generous impulse, and I do indeed thank you. I shall always
remember it and be grateful to you.«
    Marcella's face was again in shadow. Its lineaments hardened to an
expression of cold, stern dignity.
    »I have made a mistake,« she said. »I thought you above common ways of
thinking.«
    »Yes, you put me on too high a pedestal,« Peak answered, trying to speak
humorously. »One of my faults is that I am apt to mistake my own position in the
same way.«
    »You think yourself ambitious. Oh, if you knew really great ambition! Go
back to your laboratory, and work for wages. I would have saved you from that.«
    The tone was not vehement, but the words bit all the deeper for their
unimpassioned accent. Godwin could make no reply.
    »I hope,« she continued, »we may meet a few years hence. By that time you
will have learnt that what I offered was not impossible. You will wish you had
dared to accept it. I know what your ambition is. Wait till you are old enough
to see it in its true light. How you will scorn yourself! Surely there was never
a man who united such capacity for great things with so mean an ideal. You will
never win even the paltry satisfaction on which you have set your mind - never!
But you can't be made to understand that. You will throw away all the best part
of your life. Meet me in a few years, and tell me the story of the interval.«
    »I will engage to do that, Marcella.«
    »You will? But not to tell me the truth. You will not dare to tell the
truth
