He always said he wanted her, but that
was different.
"I think you love yourself more than you love me, Louis," she said,
when he had exhausted himself. "I don't believe you know what love
is."
That brought him to his knees, his arms around her, kissing her
hands, begging her not to give him up, and once again her curious
sense of responsibility for him triumphed.
"You will marry me soon, dear, won't you?" he implored her. But she
thought of Willy Cameron, oddly enough, even while his arms were
around her; of the difference in the two men. Louis, big, crouching,
suppliant and insistent; Willy Cameron, grave, reserved and steady,
taking what she now knew was the blow of her engagement like a
gentleman and a soldier.
They represented, although she did not know it, the two divisions
of men in love, the men who offer much and give little, the others
who, out of a deep humility, offer little and give everything they
have.
In the end, nothing was settled. After he had gone Lily, went up
to Elinor's room. She had found in Elinor lately a sort of nervous
tension that puzzled her, and that tension almost snapped when Lily
told her of her visit home, and of her determination to marry Louis
within the next few days.
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