"Let me tell you what you want to tell me," she said. "You can't,
because you can't put it into words--they are too humiliating for me
and you're too gentle to say them. Tell me, though, isn't it true?
You didn't believe that I'd tried to make you fall in love with me--"
"Never! Never for an instant!"
"You didn't believe I'd tried to make you want to marry me--"
"No, no, no!"
"I believe it, Bibbs. You thought that I was fond of you; you knew
I cared for you--but you didn't think I might be--in love with you.
But you thought that I might marry you without being in love with you
because you did believe I had tried to marry your brother, and--"
"Mary, I only knew--for the first time--that you--that you were--"
"Were desperately poor," she said. "You can't even say that!
Bibbs, it was true: I did try to make Jim want to marry me. I did!"
And she sank down into the chair, weeping bitterly again. Bibbs was
agonized.
"Mary," he groaned, "I didn't know you COULD cry!"
"Listen," she said. "Listen till I get through--I want you to
understand. We were poor, and we weren't fitted to be. We never
had been, and we didn't know what to do.
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