"Anywhere, away from us. We drain you like the deuce."
"No," said Nan, turning from him and speaking half absently, "I can't go away."
"Why can't you?"
"He'd miss me."
"He'd know why you went."
Her old habit of audacious truth-telling constrained her.
"I should have to write to him," she said. "And I couldn't. I couldn't keep it up. I can baby him all kinds of ways when he's looking at me with those big eyes. But I couldn't write him as he'd want me to. I couldn't, Rookie. It would be a promise."
"Milly thinks you have promised." This he ventured, though against his judgment.
"No," said Nan. "No, I haven't promised. Do you want me to?"
"I don't know," Raven answered, without a pause, as if he had been thinking about it interminably. "If it had some red blood in it, if you were—well, if you loved him, Nan, I should be mighty glad. I'd like to see you living, up to the top notch, having something you knew was the only thing on earth you wanted. But these half and half things, these falterings and doing things because somebody wants us to! God above us! I've faltered too much myself. I'd rather have made all the mistakes a man can compass, done it without second thought, than have ridden up to the wall and refused to take it."