be loved. No I'm not. I should find it a bore!"

"Bore?" she echoed--"What is that?"

"What is that? It is itself, Manella! 'Bore' is just 'bore.' It
means tiredness--worn-out-ness--a state in which you wish yourself
in a hot bath or a cold one, so that nobody can come near you. To be
'loved' would finish me off in a month!"

Her big eyes opened more widely than their wont in piteous
perplexity.

"But how?" she asked.

"How? Why, just as you have put it,--to be prayed for night and
morning,--to be worked for and waited on till fingers turned to
bones,--to be guarded from sickness and harm,--heavens!--think of
it! No more adventures in life,--no more freedom!--just love, love,
love, which would not be love at all but the chains of a miserable
wretch in prison!"

She flushed an angry crimson.

"Who is it that would chain you?" she demanded, "Not I! You could do
as you liked with me--you know it!--and when you go away from this
place, you could leave me and forget me,--I should never trouble you
or remind you that I lived!! I should have had my happiness,--enough
for my day!"

The pathos in her voice moved him though he was not easily moved. On