answered carelessly

"And don't you feel a need of courage?"

"Of course. And not only the need but the courage itself."

"Tell me the real, honest truth." She bent forward, and gazed at him
with eyes one might have thought hostile. "I demand the truth of you: I
have a right to know it. Don't you often wish you had never seen me?"

"You 're in a strange mood."

"Don't put me off. Answer!"

"To ask such a question," he replied quietly, "is to charge me with a
great deal of hypocrisy. I did _once_ all but wish I had never seen
you. If I lost you now I should lose what seems to me the strongest
desire of my life. Do you suppose I sit down and meditate on your
capacity as cook or housemaid? It would be very prudent and laudable,
but I have other thoughts--that give me trouble enough."

"What thoughts?"

"Such as one doesn't talk about--if you insist on frankness."

Her eyes wandered.

"It's only right to tell you," she said, after silence, "that I dread
poverty as much as ever I did. And I think poverty in marriage a
thousand times worse than when one is alone."

"Well, we agree in that. But why do you insist upon it just now? Are
_you_ beginning to be sorry that we ever met?"

"Not a day passes but I feel sorry for it."

"I suppose you are harping on the old scruple. Why will you plague me
about it?"

"I mean," said Eve, with eyes down, "that you are the worse off for
having met me, but I mean something else as well. Do you think it
possible that anyone can owe too much gratitude, even to a person one
likes?"

He regarded her attentively.

"You feel the burden?"

She delayed her answer, glancing at him with a new expression--a
deprecating tenderness.

"It's better to tell you. I _do_ feel it, and have always felt it."

"Confound this infernal atmosphere!" Hilliard broke out wrathfully.
"It's making you morbid again. Come here to me! Eve--come!"

As she sat motionless, he caught her hands and drew her forward, and
sat down again with her passive body resting upon his knees. She was
pale, and looked frightened.

"Your gratitude be hanged! Pay me back with your lips--so--and so!
Can't you understand that when my lips touch yours, I have a delight
that would be well purchased with years of semi-starvation? What is it
to me how I won you? You are mine for good and all--that's enough."

She drew herself half away, and stood brightly flushed, touching her
hair to set it in order again. Hilliard, with