Very tenderly he kissed her lips again. Prudence suddenly disengaged herself from his arms and slipped to her feet and stood facing him, the moonlight splashed on her hair and face, and on the slender bare arms, which she lifted on an impulse, bringing the hands to rest on his shoulders.
“We can’t, dear,” she said. “We can’t. It isn’t that I’m afraid; it isn’t that I don’t love you—better than any one in all the world. It’s just because I love you so well, I think, that I can’t have the beauty of it spoiled. That sort of thing brings regret—always.”
“You don’t dare,” he said in sullen tones. “You are thinking of what people will say.”
“No; it isn’t that. I don’t wish to pose as good—I’ve never been good. But clean and decent living appeals to me. I’m cold, perhaps—even a little hard; it isn’t so difficult for me to practise restraint—when I try—hard. I’m loving you with all my heart, dear; but I don’t want to do what you ask. If I agreed, I should hate myself, my life, everything, when the glamour faded and I had time to reflect. I know myself so well. I would rather go on with my dull loveless life than go away with you and lose my self-respect.”
“You don’t love me,” he said. “You couldn’t talk like that if you were in love. It’s unnatural. I’d risk damnation for you.”
She leaned a little nearer to him, and a new quality came into her voice; her face was solemn and tender.
“There’s something else I’m thinking of besides these things,” she said. “I can’t bear that you should go to face death—to meet death, perhaps—with this sin upon your soul. I don’t like to think that men can talk so lightly of sinning in such grave and terrible times.”
He made an impatient sound that was like a cry of protest, and moved restlessly under her hands.
“Oh, hang it all! One doesn’t want to be thinking all the time about that.”
“When death stands so close as it stands to nearly every one of us these days; when one reads of nothing else,” she added quietly; “it makes one think. It alters all one’s view of life. I used to feel that my own life mattered tremendously; that I had to make the most of every opportunity which might add to my enjoyment. Now I see things differently. I don’t hold a lesser belief in the importance of life, quite the reverse; but the personal point of view is altogether unimportant. Satisfaction comes from living worthily. I have never done that. I have been always selfish and inconsiderate for others. I believe that to-night you have taught me self-knowledge. Teach me also to be strong.”