“If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure the feeling would not die.  As it is, she has deadened me into a creature of indifference.  So you just revise your viewpoint a little, Elnora.  Cease thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey you.  I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you.  The question you are to decide is whether I may remain here, associating with you as I did last summer; but with the difference that it is understood that I am free; that it is my intention to care for you all I please, to make you return my feeling for you if I can.  There is just one question for you to decide, and it is not triangular.  It is between us.  May I remain?  May I love you?  Will you give me the chance to prove what I think of you?”

“You speak very plainly,” said Elnora.

“This is the time to speak plainly,” said Philip Ammon.  “There is no use in allowing you to go on threshing out a problem which does not exist.  If you do not want me here, say so and I will go.  Of course, I warn you before I start, that I will come back.  I won’t yield without the stiffest fight it is in me to make.  But drop thinking it lies in your power to send me back to Edith Carr.  If she were the last woman in the world, and I the last man, I’d jump off the planet before I would give her further opportunity to exercise her temper on me.  Narrow this to us, Elnora.  Will you take the place she vacated?  Will you take the heart she threw away?  I’d give my right hand and not flinch, if I could offer you my life, free from any contact with hers, but that is not possible.  I can’t undo things which are done.  I can only profit by experience and build better in the future.”

“I don’t see how you can be sure of yourself,” said Elnora.  “I don’t see how I could be sure of you.  You loved her first, you never can care for me anything like that.  Always I’d have to be afraid you were thinking of her and regretting.”

“Folly!” cried Philip.  “Regretting what?  That I was not married to a woman who was liable to rave at me any time or place, without my being conscious of having given offence?  A man does relish that!  I am likely to pine for more!”

“You’d be thinking she’d learned a lesson.  You would think it wouldn’t happen again.”

“No, I wouldn’t be ‘thinking,’” said, Philip.  “I’d be everlastingly sure!  I wouldn’t risk what I went through that night again, not to save my life!  Just you and me, Elnora.  Decide for us.”

“I can’t!” cried Elnora.  “I am afraid!”

“Very well,” said Philip.  “We will wait until you feel that you can.  Wait until fear vanishes.  Just decide now whether you would rather have me go for a few months, or remain with you.  Which shall it be, Elnora?”

“You can never love me as you did her,” wailed Elnora.