And every time you smiled on one of them I grew the gloomier----" "And what does my gaiety mean--save that the source of happiness lies rooted in you?
What do other men count, only that in their admiration I read some recompense for you, who made me admirable.

These gowns I wear are yours--these shoon and buckles and silken stockings--these bows of lace and furbelows--this little patch making my rose cheeks rosier--this frost of powder on my hair! All these I wear, Euan, so that man's delight in me may do you honour.

All I am to please them--my gaiety, my small wit, which makes for them crude verses, my modesty, my decorum, my mind and person, which seem not unacceptable to a respectable society--all these are but dormant qualities that you have awakened and inspired----" She broke off short, tears filling her eyes: "Of what am I made, then, if my first and dearest and deepest thought be not for you?
And such a man as this is jealous!" I caught her hands, but she bent swiftly and laid her hot cheek for an instant against my hand which held them.
"If there is in me a Cinderella," she said unsteadily, "it is you who have discovered it--liberated it--and who have willed that it shall live.

Did you suppose that it was in me to make those verses unless you told me that I could do it?
You said, 'Try,' and instantly I dared try....

Is that not something to stir your pride?
A girl as absolutely yours as that?
And do not the lesser and commonplace emotions seem trivial in comparison--all the heats and passions and sentimental vapours--the sighs and vows and languishing all the inevitable trappings and masqueradings which bedizzen what men know as love--do they not all seem mean and petty compared to our deep, sweet knowledge of each other ?" "You are wonderful," I said humbly.