...

Dear, no man in his right senses can continue to love a girl such as I am.

All that is true and ardent and generous in you has invested my physical attractiveness and my small intellect with a magic that cannot last, because it is magic; and you are the magician, enmeshed for the moment in the mists of your own enchantment.

When this fades, when you unclose your eyes in clear daylight, dear, I dread to think what I shall appear to you--what a dreadful, shrunken, bloodless shell, hung with lace and scented, silken cerements--a jewelled mummy-case--a thing that never was! ...

Do you understand my punishment a little, now ?" "If it were true," he said in a dull voice, "you will have forgotten, too." "I pray I may," she said under her breath.
And, after a long silence: "Do you think, before the year is out, that you might be granted enough courage ?" he asked.
"No.