Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 7.pdf/408

 "But what am I to do?" Her voice went up.

"Well―there is one thing you can do. If you dare."

"What is it?"

He made no answer for some seconds. Then he turned round and sat looking at her. Their eyes met

The grey of his mind began to colour. Her face was white and she was looking at him, in fear and perplexity. A new tenderness for her sprang up in him―a new feeling. Hitherto he had loved and desired her sweetness and animation―but now she was white and weary-eyed. He felt as though he had forgotten her and suddenly remembered. A great longing came into his mind.

"But what is the other thing I can do?"

It was strangely hard to say. There came a peculiar sensation in his throat and facial muscles, a nervous stress between laughing and crying. All the world vanished before that great desire. And he was afraid she would not dare, that she would not take him seriously.

"What is it?" she said again.

"Don't you see that we can marry?" he said, with the flood of his resolution suddenly strong and steady. "Don't you see that is the only thing for us? The dead lane we are in! You must come out of your cheating, and I must come out of my cramming. And we―we must marry."

He paused and then became eloquent. "The world is against us, against―us. To you it offers money to cheat―to be ignoble. For it is ignoble!