"
"Why?" I asked. "Marry me! Why should we two--"
"You think," she said, "I could take courage and come to you and be your
everyday wife--while you work and are poor?"
"Why not?" said I.
She looked at me gravely, with extended finger. "Do you really think
that--of me? Haven't you seen me--all?"
I hesitated.
"Never once have I really meant marrying you," she insisted. "Never
once. I fell in love with you from the first. But when you seemed a
successful man, I told myself I wouldn't. I was love-sick for you,
and you were so stupid, I came near it then. But I knew I wasn't good
enough. What could I have been to you? A woman with bad habits and bad
associations, a woman smirched. And what could I do for you or be to
you? If I wasn't good enough to be a rich man's wife, I'm certainly not
good enough to be a poor one's. Forgive me for talking sense to you now,
but I wanted to tell you this somehow."
She stopped at my gesture. I sat up, and the canoe rocked with my
movement.
"I don't care," I said. "I want to marry you and make you my wife!"
"No," she said, "don't spoil things.
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