Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/75

Rh is a human being with a heart. You think I am afraid of the world, afraid of poverty, afraid of life as God makes it, as God wills it; that I am a fragile something that the rain and the sunlight would ruin if it touched; that I am a something more or less than you, a something that requires ease and luxury and all the gilded stage-setting of wealth—and you are wrong. If I love you, of what value to me are all those other things without you? If I love you, it is not all these things I want—it is you. I ask you to answer this, and by what is true in your heart, know what is true in mine: Would you be happy with all that wealth can give you and without me?”

“No,” said the man, “not after to-night. No.”

“No more would I,” added the woman.

The heart, as it is said, speaks clearer to the heart when tongues are silent, and it is said that grief and happiness when riding high in their meridian have no need for the cumbrous medium of language.

After a long silence, Miss Lanmar began again. “Men cannot understand,” she said;