"You'll face this thing
like the brave woman you are. Good heavens! As if there were any
choice!"
"There is," Cynthia whispered, looking at him shyly, through lowered
lids. "There is a choice. But it rests with you. Mr. West, if you want
me to do this thing--if you really want me to, and it's a big thing to
do, even for you--I'll do it. There! I'll do it! I'll go on living like
a chopped worm for your sake. But--but--you'll have to do something for
me in return. Now I wonder if you can guess what I'm hinting at?"
West's face changed. The eagerness went out of it. Something of his
habitual grimness of expression returned.
Yet his voice was full of tenderness when he spoke.
"Cynthia," he said very earnestly, "there is nothing on this earth that
I will not do for you. But don't ask me to be the means of ruining you
socially, of depriving you of all your friends, of degrading you to a
position that would break your heart."
A glimmer of amusement flashed across Cynthia's drawn face.
"Oh!" she said, a little quiver in her voice. "You are funny, you men,
dull as moles and blind as bats. My dear, there's only one person in
this little universe who has the power to break my heart, and it isn't
any fault of his that he didn't do it long ago. No, don't speak. There's
nothing left for you to say. The petition is dismissed, but not the
petitioner; so listen to me instead.
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