His look, his attitude, the tones of his voice, the something woe-begone and yet boyish in his expression, recalled irresistibly the days in the cabin, when he often wore just this air. She had observed before that when they were alone together the years seemed to fall from his manner, while he became the immature, inexperienced young fugitive again. She had scarcely expected, however, that this lapse into youth would occur to-night. She herself felt ages old—as though all the ends of the world had come upon her.
"You may say anything you like. There's nothing you could possibly tell me that I shouldn't understand."
"Well, then, when I made that promise, I meant to keep it, and to keep it in a special way. I thought—of course we were both very young—but I thought that, after what had happened—"
"Wait a minute. I want to tell you something before you go on." She rallied her spirit's forces for a desperate step, gathering all her life's possible happiness into one extravagant handful, and flinging it away, in order to save her pride before this man, who was about to tell her that he had never been able to love her. "What I am going to say may strike you as irrelevant; but if it is, you can ignore it. I expect to be married—in a little while—it's practically a settled thing—to Charles Conquest, whom I think you know. Now, will you go on, please?"
He stared at her in utter blankness.
"Good God!"
He got up and took a few restless turns up and down the room, his head bent, his hands behind his back. He reseated himself when his confused impressions grew clearer.
"So that it doesn't matter what I thought about—that promise?"
"Not in the least." She had saved herself. "The one thing important to me is that you should have made it."
"And that you can hold me to it," he added, tersely.