They had stopped again, at the other corner. Phyllis regarded him quietly with troubled eyes. “Rose-Ann....” she said.
“Yes. I know. Rose-Ann. And everything.”
“No. We can’t,” she said.
“No. We mustn’t.”
They looked at each other bravely, and a little pitifully, and recommenced their silent promenade along the deserted street.
At the door, she stopped firmly, and held out her hand. “You must go,” she said. “Good night. I’m—glad, in spite of everything. Good night.”
He held her hand in his, desperately anxious to keep this moment’s beauty a little longer, before he returned to the world of reality. “Will you—kiss me?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Not even in good-bye?” he urged.
She laughed, with a sudden resumption of lightness. “A good-bye kiss? There’s no such thing, Felix! A kiss is always the beginning of things.—Good night!” She held his hand a moment, and added in the most friendly way, as if they were almost strangers, “I shall see you at the ball tomorrow night?”