'You had rather I lamented my fate in not being able to devote myself to n.o.bly unremunerative work?'

There was a note of irony here. It caused her a tremor, but she held her position.

'That you never do so would make one think--but I won't speak unkindly.'

'That I neither care for good work nor am capable of it,' Jasper finished her sentence. 'I shouldn't have thought it would make you think so.'

Instead of replying she turned her look towards the door. There was a footstep on the stairs, but it pa.s.sed.

'I thought it might be Dora,' she said.

'She won't be here for another couple of hours at least,' replied Jasper with a slight smile.

'But you said--?'

'I sent her to Mrs Boston Wright's that I might have an opportunity of talking to you. Will you forgive the stratagem?'

Marian resumed her former att.i.tude, the faintest smile hovering about her lips.

'I'm glad there's plenty of time,' he continued. 'I begin to suspect that you have been misunderstanding me of late. I must set that right.'

'I don't think I have misunderstood you.'

'That may mean something very disagreeable. I know that some people whom I esteem have a very poor opinion of me, but I can't allow you to be one of them. What do I seem to you? What is the result on your mind of all our conversations?'

'I have already told you.'

'Not seriously. Do you believe I am capable of generous feeling?'

'To say no, would be to put you in the lowest cla.s.s of men, and that a very small one.''Good! Then I am not among the basest. But that doesn't give me very distinguished claims upon your consideration. Whatever I am, I am high in some of my ambitions.'

'Which of them?'

'For instance, I have been daring enough to hope that you might love me.'

Marian delayed for a moment, then said quietly:

'Why do you call that daring?'

'Because I have enough of old-fashioned thought to believe that a woman who is worthy of a man's love is higher than he, and condescends in giving herself to him.'

His voice was not convincing; the phrase did not sound natural on his lips. It was not thus that she had hoped to hear him speak. Whilst he expressed himself thus conventionally he did not love her as she desired to be loved.

'I don't hold that view,' she said.

'It doesn't surprise me. You are very reserved on all subjects, and we have never spoken of this, but of course I know that your thought is never commonplace. Hold what view you like of woman's position, that doesn't affect mine.'

'Is yours commonplace, then?'

'Desperately. Love is a very old and common thing, and I believe I love you in the old and common way. I think you beautiful, you seem to me womanly in the best sense, full of charm and sweetness. I know myself a coa.r.s.e being in comparison. All this has been felt and said in the same way by men infinite in variety. Must I find some new expression before you can believe me?'

Marian kept silence.

'I know what you are thinking,' he said. 'The thought is as inevitable as my consciousness of it.'

For an instant she looked at him.

'Yes, you look the thought. Why have I not spoken to you in this way before? Why have I waited until you are obliged to suspect my sincerity?'

'My thought is not so easily read, then,' said Marian.

'To be sure it hasn't a gross form, but I know you wish--whatever your real feeling towards me--that I had spoken a fortnight ago. You would wish that of any man in my position, merely because it is painful to you to see a possible insincerity. Well, I am not insincere. I have thought of you as of no other woman for some time. But--yes, you shall have the plain, coa.r.s.e truth, which is good in its way, no doubt. I was afraid to say that I loved you. You don't flinch; so far, so good. Now what harm is there in this confession? In the common course of things I shouldn't be in a position to marry for perhaps three or four years, and even then marriage would mean difficulties, restraints, obstacles. I have always dreaded the thought of marriage with a poor income. You remember?

Love in a hut, with water and a crust, Is--Love forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust.

You know that is true.'

'Not always, I dare say.'

'But for the vast majority of mortals. There's the instance of the Reardons. They were in love with each other, if ever two people were; but poverty ruined everything. I am not in the confidence of either of them, but I feel sure each has wished the other dead. What else was to be expected? Should I have dared to take a wife in my present circ.u.mstances--a wife as poor as myself?'

'You will be in a much better position before long,' said Marian.

'If you loved me, why should you have been afraid to ask me to have confidence in your future?'

'It's all so uncertain. It may be another ten years before I can count on an income of five or six hundred pounds--if I have to struggle on in the common way.'

'But tell me, what is your aim in life? What do you understand by success?'

'Yes, I will tell you. My aim is to have easy command of all the pleasures desired by a cultivated man. I want to live among beautiful things, and never to be troubled by a thought of vulgar difficulties.

I want to travel and enrich my mind in foreign countries. I want to a.s.sociate on equal terms with refined and interesting people. I want to be known, to be familiarly referred to, to feel when I enter a room that people regard me with some curiosity.'

He looked steadily at her with bright eyes.

'And that's all?' asked Marian.

'That is very much. Perhaps you don't know how I suffer in feeling myself at a disadvantage. My instincts are strongly social, yet I can't be at my ease in society, simply because I can't do justice to myself.

Want of money makes me the inferior of the people I talk with, though I might be superior to them in most things. I am ignorant in many ways, and merely because I am poor. Imagine my never having been out of England! It shames me when people talk familiarly of the Continent. So with regard to all manner of amus.e.m.e.nts and pursuits at home. Impossible for me to appear among my acquaintances at the theatre, at concerts.

I am perpetually at a disadvantage; I haven't fair play. Suppose me possessed of money enough to live a full and active life for the next five years; why, at the end of that time my position would be secure. To him that hath shall be given--you know how universally true that is.'

'And yet,' came in a low voice from Marian, 'you say that you love me.'

'You mean that I speak as if no such thing as love existed. But you asked me what I understood by success. I am speaking of worldly things.

Now suppose I had said to you:

My one aim and desire in life is to win your love. Could you have believed me? Such phrases are always untrue; I don't know how it can give anyone pleasure to hear them. But if I say to you: All the satisfactions I have described would be immensely heightened if they were shared with a woman who loved me--there is the simple truth.'

Marian's heart sank. She did not want truth such as this; she would have preferred that he should utter the poor, common falsehoods. Hungry for pa.s.sionate love, she heard with a sense of desolation all this calm reasoning. That Jasper was of cold temperament she had often feared; yet there was always the consoling thought that she did not see with perfect clearness into his nature. Now and then had come a flash, a hint of possibilities. She had looked forward with trembling eagerness to some sudden revelation; but it seemed as if he knew no word of the language which would have called such joyous response from her expectant soul.

'We have talked for a long time,' she said, turning her head as if his last words were of no significance. 'As Dora is not coming, I think I will go now.'