She smiled again with lips that quivered. "No, you don't understand. You're too big for me altogether. I can't say 'Yes,' but I feel very highly honoured all the same. You'll believe that, won't you?"
She hesitated momentarily. "You see, I'm afraid I don't care for you--like that," she said.
She looked at him, her hand still in his. "Don't you think so?"
"No, I don't," he said, "unless you think you couldn't be happy."
"I was thinking of you," she said gently.
"Of me?" He looked surprised for an instant, and again his eyes met hers in a quick glance. "If you're going to think of me," he said, "you'll do it. I have told you, you needn't be afraid of my expecting too much."
But she shook her head. "I should be much more afraid of taking too much from you," she said. "The little I could offer would never satisfy you."
"Yes it would," he insisted. "I'm only asking to stand between you and trouble. It's all I want in life."
Again his eyes were upon her, dark and resolute. His hand held hers in a steady grip. For the first time her own resolution began to falter.
"Let me write to you, Mr. Ironside," she said at last, with a vague idea of softening a refusal that had become inexplicably hard.
She smiled a little, but her eyes filled with sudden tears. "You make it very hard for me to say 'No,'" she said.
"I would like to make it impossible," he said.
"Even when I have told you that I can't--that I don't--love you in the ordinary way?" she said almost pleadingly.
"I don't want to be loved in the ordinary way," he answered doggedly.
"I should be a perpetual disappointment to you," she said.
"I would rather have even that than--nothing," said Jeff.
One of the tears ran over and fell upon their clasped hands. "In fact, you want me at any price," she said.
She bent her head and choked back a sob. "And no one else wants me at all," she whispered.
He stooped towards her. Perhaps for her peace of mind it was as well that she did not see the sudden fire that blazed in his deep-set eyes as he did so.
"So you'll change your mind," he said, after a moment, to the bowed head. "You'll have me--you will?"
She caught back another sob and said nothing.
He straightened himself sharply. "Miss Elliot, if it's going to make you miserable, you had better send me away. I'll go--if it's for that."