proportions. Then regret began to creep in, but he put that aside and broke out again in protestations. At the first word Rue Barrée checked him.
“I thank you,” she said, speaking very gravely. “No man has ever before offered me marriage.” She turned and looked out over the city. After a while she spoke again. “You offer me a great deal. I am alone, I have nothing, I am nothing.” She turned again and looked at Paris, brilliant, fair, in the sunshine of a perfect day. He followed her eyes.
“Oh,” she murmured, “it is hard,—hard to work always—always alone with never a friend you can have in honor, and the love that is offered means the streets, the boulevard—when passion is dead. I know it,—we know it,—we others who have nothing,—have no one, and who give ourselves, unquestioning—when we love,—yes, unquestioning—heart and soul, knowing the end.”
She touched the rose at her breast. For a moment she seemed to forget him, then quietly—“I thank you, I am very grateful.” She opened the book and, plucking a petal from the rose dropped it between the leaves. Then looking up she said gently, “I cannot accept.”
