"Eat and drink, and juggle a little
with the ball of fate."
"You are not ambitious?"
"Not in the least."
"Pleasure, for itself, does not attract you. No! I know that it does
not. What are you going to do, then?"
"I have no idea," he answered. "Won't you direct me?"
"Yes, I will," she answered, "if you will pay my price."
He looked at her more intently. He himself had been attaching no
particular importance to this conversation, but he was suddenly
conscious that it was not so with the woman at his side. Her eyes were
shining at him, soft and full and sweet; her beautiful bosom was
rising and falling quickly; there had come to her something which even
he was forced to recognize, that curious and voluptuous abandonment
which a woman rarely permits herself, and can never assume. He was a
little bewildered. His speech lost for a moment its cold precision.
"Your price?" he repeated. "I--I am stupid. I'm afraid I don't
understand."
"Marry me," she whispered in his ear, "and I will take you a little
further into life than you could ever go alone You don't care for me,
of course--but you shall. You don't understand this world, Wingrave,
or how to make the best of it. I do! Let me be your guide!"
Wingrave looked at her in grave astonishment.
"You are not by any chance--in earnest?" he asked.
"You know very well that I am," she answered swiftly. "And yet you
hesitate! What is it that you are afraid of? Don't you like to give up
your liberty? We need not marry unless you choose.
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