"Christian, I want to explain—I said nothing—I never meant to annoy him, I began about you, and that—that we loved each other. For we do, Christian, don't we?" He had her hands in his, he crushed them in his anxiety, his eyes implored her. "Then suddenly he began to abuse me like a madman! My religion, my politics, my treachery to my class—I can't tell you what he didn't say! And then he swore he'd rather see you dead than married to me. I don't know what I said—nothing, I think; he began to look as if he were dying himself, and I rang the bell and bolted for you."
"Poor boy!" said Christian.
He thought that her face as she looked at him was as it were the face of an angel, but the sorrow in it frightened him.
"Come into the study," she said, freeing her hands from his grasp; "we can't talk here."
The study door was open; he followed her in silence, and, shutting the door, sat down beside her on the sofa.
"Larry, we've got to face it, you know; we've got to face it," she began, and gave back to him her slender sensitive hand, as if to heal the wound of what the words implied.
"Face what?" said Larry, stubbornly, girding himself for resistance.
"Face delay—opposition——"
"I'll face opposition as much as you like, but I won't face delay! Why should we? We're of age. There's nothing against me!"
Christian smiled faintly.