I might
have half of you, at any rate. But this business would claim,
not half of you, but nine-tenths of you, or ninety-nine
hundredths.
"Remember, the meaning of marriage to me is not to get a man's
money to spend. I want the man. You say you want ME. And
suppose I consented, but gave you only one-hundredth part of me.
Suppose there was something else in my life that took the other
ninety-nine parts, and, furthermore, that ruined my figure, that
put pouches under my eyes and crows-feet in the corners, that
made me unbeautiful to look upon and that made my spirit
unbeautiful. Would you be satisfied with that one-hundredth part
of me? Yet that is all you are offering me of yourself. Do you
wonder that I won't marry you?--that I can't?"
Daylight waited to see if she were quite done, and she went on
again.
"It isn't that I am selfish. After all, love is giving, not
receiving. But I see so clearly that all my giving could not do
you any good. You are like a sick man. You don't play business
like other men. You play it heart and and all of you. No matter
what you believed and intended a wife would be only a brief
diversion. There is that magnificent Bob, eating his head off in
the stable.
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