"Don't say such things, I beg of you!" he implored. "I am sure that in
what you have quoted there is a slander upon most women. I know that it
slanders you."
Her lips parted as if for a contradiction, but it was evidently very
pleasant to her to hear such words from him, and with a little childlike
smile of gratification she let him proceed.
"I have perfect confidence in you," he murmured. "I am willing to put all
my chances of happiness in your hands. My only fear is that I am not half
worthy of you--not a thousandth part worthy of you. Will you not listen to
me seriously? Will you not be so kind?"
A tremor of emotion slightly lifted her hands, and it seemed for a moment
as if she would extend them to him. Then there was a sudden revulsion:
with a more violent shudder, evidently of a painful nature, she threw
herself backward, her face turned pale, and she closed her eyes as if to
shut him from her sight.
"I ought to ask your pardon," she whispered. "I never thought that it
would come to this. I never meant that it should. Oh, I ask your pardon."
Recovering herself with singular quickness, a bright smile dancing along
the constantly changing curves of her lips, like sunbeams leaping from
wavelet to wavelet, she once more leaned cordially toward him, and said in
a gay yet pleading tone, "Let us talk of something else.
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