Waterhouse My Sweet Rose painting

felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands -- and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before -- and it's better than anything I've known.''
She spoke in a low even voice, without tears or
-171-visible agitation; and each word, as it dropped from her, fell into his breast like burning lead. He sat bowed over, his head between his hands, staring at the hearthrug, and at the tip of the satin shoe that showed under her dress. Suddenly he knelt down and kissed the shoe.
She bent over him, laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking at him with eyes so deep that he remained motionless under her gaze.
``Ah, don't let us undo what you've done!'' she cried. ``I can't go back now to that other way of thinking. I can't love you unless I give you up.''