"Yes."

"You are not going to be married to Harold Transome, or to be rich?"

"No."

"Why?" said Felix in rather a low tone, leaning his elbow on the table,
and resting his head on his hand while he looked at her.

"I did not wish to marry him, or to be rich."

"You have given it all up?" said Felix, leaning forward a little and
speaking in a still lower tone. "Could you share the life of a poor man,
then, Esther?"

"If I thought well enough of him," she said, with a smile, and a pretty
movement of her head.

"Have you considered well what it would be?--that it would be a very
bare and simple life? and the people I shall live among, Esther? They
have not just the same follies and vices as the rich, but they have
their own forms of folly and vice. It is very serious, Esther."

"I know it is serious," said Esther, looking up at him. "Since I have
been at Transome Court I have seen many things very seriously. If I had
not, I should not have left what I did leave. I made a deliberate
choice."

She could not tell him that at Transome Court, all that finally seemed
balanced against her love for him, was the offer of a silken bondage