You are so beautiful;
and this quiet, peace--you must have it all your life; it is the air,
the garden air, for you to flower in. I can give it to you, miles of it,
farther than you can see. All that you care for heaped about you. But
not that only," he insisted, "for I realized that no one lives to whom
such things are less; I can give you something more, not to be talked
about; whatever my life has been it has at least brought me to your
feet. I have learned, for you, that there is a thing men must have, God
knows exactly what--a craving to be satisfied, a--a reaching. And that
itself, the knowledge of such need, is not without value. Because of it
I again, and shall again, if necessary, ask you to marry me."
She replied in a low voice. "You must marry the child's mother." For the
first time she avoided him; bright blood burned in her cheeks; a hand on
the edge of the table was straining, white. A sudden feeling of
helplessness came over him, with, behind it, the ever-present edge of
anger, of impatience. He took a step forward, as if to crush, by sheer
insistence, her opposition; but he stopped. He lost entirely the sense
of her fragile physical being; she seemed only a spirit, shining and
high, and insuperably lovely.
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