'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 coarse 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, coarse 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 circumstances--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 associate 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 Ican'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 amusements and pursuits at home. Impossible for me to appear among my acquaintances at the theatre, at concerts. Iam 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 passionate 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.'
She rose, and went towards the chair on which lay her out-of-door things. At once Jasper stepped to her side.
'You will go without giving me any answer?'
'Answer? To what?'
'Will you be my wife?'
'It is too soon to ask me that.'
'Too soon? Haven't you known for months that I thought of you with far more than friendliness?'
'How was it possible I should know that? You have explained to me why you would not let your real feelings be understood.'
The reproach was merited, and not easy to be outfaced. He turned away for an instant, then with a sudden movement caught both her hands.