Fleda was silent a moment, and then bowed her face in her hands.
"May I not ask that question of you?" said he, bending down and endeavouring to remove them;--"will you not say--or look--that word that will make others happy beside me?"
"I cannot, sir."
"Not for their sakes?" he said calmly.
"Can you ask me to do for theirs what I would not for my own?"
"Yes--for mine," he said, with a meaning deliberateness.
Fleda was silent, with a face of white determination.
"It will be beyond eluding, as beyond recall, the second time. I may seem selfish--I am selfish--but dear Miss Ringgan you do not see all,--you who make me so can make me anything else with a touch of your hand--it is selfishness that would be bound to your happiness, if you did but entrust it to me."
Fleda neither spoke nor looked at him and rose up from her chair.
"Is this your generosity?" he said, pointedly though gently.