"Many times!" His lips have grown into a rather straight line.
"Still I repeat my question."

"Am I so selfish as this in your eyes?" asks she. "Is it thus you
regard me?" Her large eyes have grown quite full of tears. "Is my
own happiness so much to me that for the sake of it I would
deliberately ruin yours?"

"It would not ruin mine! Marry me, Marian, if--you love me!"

"You know I love you." Her voice is tremulous now and her face very
pale. "But _how_ can we marry? I am a beggar, and you----"

"The same!" returns he shortly. "We are in the same boat."

"Still, one must think."

"And you are the one. Do you know, Marian"--he pauses, and then goes
on deliberately--"I have been thinking, too, and I have come to the
conclusion that when one truly loves, one never calculates."

"Not even for the one beloved?"

"For no one!"

"Is love, then, only selfishness incarnate?"

"I cannot answer that. It is a great mixture; but, whatever it is,
it rules the world, or should rule it. It rules _me_. You tell