A
look would have done it; a touch of her finger on that morning.
She had known then that he had intended to be in earnest,--that he
only waited for encouragement. She had not given it because she
had not wish to grasp too eagerly for the prize,--and now the prize
was gone! She had said that she had spared him;--but then she
could afford to joke, thinking that he would surely come back to
her.
She had begun her world with so fatal a mistake! When she was
quite young, when she was little more than a child but still not a
child, she had given all her love to a man whom she soon found
that it would be impossible she should ever marry. He had offered
to face the world with her, promising to do the best to smooth the
rough places, and to soften the stones for her feet. But she,
young as she was, had felt that both he and she belonged to a
class which could hardly endure poverty with contentment. The
grinding need for money, the absolute necessity of luxurious
living, had been pressed upon her from her childhood. She had seen
it and acknowledged it, and had told him with precocious wisdom,
that that which he offered to do for her sake would be a folly for
them both.
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