"No," the girl answered, "I thank you with my whole heart, but I can't."
"Why ... why?" he stammered. "Unless you're married already."
"I'm not married. No man has ever been anything to me. I swear that to you! But I can't tell you any more about myself."
Roger did not speak for a minute. At last he said:
"See here, you and I have got to talk. We can't do that where we are, with people jostling us this way and that. There's one thing certain. However this ends, I'm not going to leave you alone in Chicago. We've got plenty of time. Will you let me take you to a quiet restaurant? We can thrash matters out across the table."
"Very well," she agreed.
Roger knew Chicago. When he had arranged to have his luggage put in safe keeping, he got a taxi and took the girl to a dull but good place, sure to be practically empty at that hour. They sat down at a table in a corner, and Sands ordered an oyster stew.
"Do you dislike me?" he began his catechism. "Could you like me enough to think of me as a husband, if we'd met in a conventional, society sort of way?"
"Yes, I could. I do want you to know that. You've been so splendid to me."
"So far so good, but I haven't been splendid. I've fallen in love with you. I haven't been in love before ... that is, not since I was twenty. I've never had time...."