"You are mine!" he whispered, moved by the reminder but not abashed. "If I had never known love in its fullness, I might be able to endure this cold, repellent pretense of virtue—for, it's nothing but a flimsy pretense. Courtney, if you love me——"
"Is your love only—that!"
"If you loved me," he repeated, "you'd not calculate so puritanically. If I weren't seeing you, dear, I could bear it. But seeing you all the time—touching you—kissing you—Courtney, Courtney, how can you make me, and yourself too, suffer so needlessly? If you really love, how can you keep me out of your inmost life—as if I were not everything to you?"
"I explained to you——"
"Explained! Explained!" he said, impatiently. "We explain and explain, but it's all sophistry. The truth is—what? That we are lovers. And, if our love is a sin, why not take all its reward since we'll have to take all its punishment?"
"Don't harass me now," she begged, agitated and trembling.
"Harass you!" He drew away offendedly. "I thought I was pleading for you, as well as for myself. If I am not, please forget what I said."
"I didn't mean that!"
"Then I may come to-night—or you to me?"
She gave him a sad, pleading look. "Not to-night, dear. Not just yet. We must wait till things are going quietly in a routine."