"
"Do you mean that?" she asked.
"I think you know," he answered.
"You men are so strange," she went on, after a moment's pause.
"You give us so little time to know you, you show us so little of
yourselves and you expect so much."
"We offer everything," he reminded her.
"I want to avoid platitudes," she said thoughtfully, "but is love
quite the same thing for a man as for a woman?"
"Sometimes it is more," was the prompt reply. "Sometimes love, for
a woman, means only shelter; often, for a man, love means the
blending of all knowledge, of all beauty, all ambition, of all that
he has learned from books and from life. Sometimes a man can see
no further and needs to look no further."
Philippa suddenly felt that she was in danger. There was something
in her heart of which she had never before been conscious, some
music, some strange turn of sentiment in Lessingham's voice or
the words themselves. It was madness, she told herself breathlessly.
She was in love with her husband, if any one. She could not have
lost all feeling for him so soon. She clasped her hands tightly.
Lessingham seemed conscious of his advantage, and leaned towards
her.
"If I were not offering you my whole life," he pleaded, "believe
me, I would not open my lips. If I were thinking of episodes, I
would throw myself into the sea before I asked you to give me even
your fingers.
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