Sylvia's hand touched the water caressingly, waking tiny ripples.
"Sylvia," he said when he was calm again, "I want you to marry me." "I have told you, Dan, that I can never marry any one; and that must be the end of it." "But your work can go on--" he began, ready for another assault upon that barrier.
A sailboat loitering in the light wind had stolen close upon them, and passed hardly a paddle's length away.

Dan, without changing his position, drove the canoe toward the shore with a few strokes of the paddle, then steadied himself to speak again.

Sylvia's eyes watched the sails vanishing like ghosts into the dark.
"That won't do, Sylvia: that isn't enough.

You haven't said that you don't care for me; you haven't said that you don't love me! And I can't believe that your ambitions alone are in the way.

Believe me, that I respect them; I should never interfere with them.