“That’s what I’m afraid of—that I’ve gone too far already.”
“In what way?”
“In the way that’s brought us face to face like this. If I’d never promised to marry you I shouldn’t now have to—to reconsider.”
“Oh, so that’s it. You’re reconsidering.”
“Don’t you see that I have to? If you make me as unhappy as you can before marriage, what’ll it be afterward?”
“And how happy are you making me?”
Holding the ring between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, she played at putting it back, without doing it. “So there you are! Isn’t that another reason for reconsidering—for both of us?”
“Don’t you care anything about me?”
“You make it difficult—after such an exhibition as that of last night, right before Aunt Marion. Can’t you imagine that there are situations in which I feel ashamed?”
It was then that he spoke the words which changed the current of his life. “And can’t you imagine that there are situations in which I resent being badgered by a bitter-tongued old maid, to say nothing of a girl––” He knew how “crazy” he was, but the habit of getting beyond his own control was one of long standing—“to say nothing of a girl who’s 8 more like an old maid than a woman going to be married.”