I know that a
great many people would say as you have, but it is wrong in every
aspect, absolutely hopeless. Essie's values are totally different from
yours; she has her own necessities; one measure will not do for all
women."
She rose and stood facing him, very near, her crinoline swaying against
him, and said blindly, "You shall marry her."
"I'll be damned if I do," Jasper Penny asserted. "I will marry you,
you," he whispered, with his lips against the fineness of her ear. Her
hands were on his shoulders; but she neither drew herself into his
embrace nor repulsed him. He wanted to crush her softness in his arms,
to kiss her still face into acquiescence. The quality, the kind, of his
need made it impossible. She slipped back without a sound into her
chair, drooping forward over the table.
A sharp pity invaded him, holding him back from her, silencing the flow
of his reasoning and appeal. It defeated, in the stirring tenderness of
its consideration, his purpose. He could not continue tormenting her,
racking her delicate, taut sensibilities by a hard insistence. He
withdrew quietly, to where his hat and stick rested on a chair, and
gathered them up. Still she didn't move, raise her head, break the low
fumbling of the soft coal.
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