"Conscience," he asked slowly, "you have used a diplomacy worthy of a better cause, in devising ways to keep me from talking with you alone—why?"
"Have I done that?" she countered.
"You know you have. Of course you've known I wanted to make love to you. Why wouldn't you let me?"
"Because," she answered gravely, meeting his eyes with full candor, "I didn't want you to—make love to me. I'm not ready for that."
"I haven't said I wasn't willing to wait, have I?" he suggested quietly. "You don't appear to throw barriers of silence between yourself and Billy."
"No. That's different.... I'm not—" Suddenly she broke off and laughed at herself.
Then a little startled, at her own frankness, she admitted in a low voice, "I'm not afraid of Billy's unsettling me."
The man felt his temples throb with a sudden and intoxicating elation. He steadied himself against its agitation to demand,
"And you are—afraid that I might?"
She was sitting with the moonlight waking her dark hair into a somber luster and a gossamer shimmer on the white of her evening gown. Her hands lay unmoving in her lap and she slowly nodded her confession.