Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/71

Rh "You must be mad!" she said. "Why on earth should you want to marry me?" Also she said: "I am old and plain, and you don't love me." But she said it to herself.

"I do want it," he said, "and I want it more than I want anything."

His tone was convincing.

"But why? but why?"

An impulse of truth-telling came to Robert.

"Because it's all so beautiful," he said with straightforward enthusiasm. "All your lovely quiet life—and the house, and these old gardens, and the dainty, delicate, firm way you have of managing everything—the whole thing's my ideal. It's perfect—I can't bear any other life."

"I'm afraid you'll have to," she said with bitter decision. "I am not going to marry a man just because he admires my house and garden, and is good enough to appreciate my methods of household management. Good night."

She had shaken his hand coolly and shut the front door from within before he could find a word. He found one as the latch clicked.