"Can I be so happy as to believe, then, that you had thought of me
with some confidence, with some faith?"
"If you didn't suppose so, what is the sense of this visit?" Rose
asked.
"One can be faithful without reciprocity," said the young man. "I
regard you in a light which makes me want to protect you even if I
have nothing to gain by it."
"Yet you speak as if you thought you might keep me for yourself."
"For YOURSELF. I don't want you to suffer."
"Nor to suffer yourself by my doing so," said Rose, looking down.
"Ah, if you would only marry me next month!" he broke out
inconsequently.
"And give up going to mamma?" Rose waited to see if he would say
"What need that matter? Can't your mother come to us?" But he said
nothing of the sort; he only answered -
"She surely would be sorry to interfere with the exercise of any
other affection which I might have the bliss of believing that you
are now free, in however small a degree, to entertain."
Rose knew that her mother wouldn't be sorry at all; but she contented
herself with rejoining, her hand on the door: "Good-bye. I sha'n't
suffer. I'm not afraid."
"You don't know how terrible, how cruel, the world can be.
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