“What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you are surely free.”
“I don't know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise may be broken after marriage as well as before.”
“You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that men are always unfaithful, but I'm sure that if I loved a girl I could never think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl but you?”
“I don't know. I wonder if all you say is true.”
“Do you think me different from other men?”
“Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk there with you.”
“No, now, now—I want to tell you how and when I began to love. Do you remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there is much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you. Come, and let us sit on the shingle. Oh, the beautiful evening!”
She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked she lost interest in him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had bent towards her, and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked of love—she of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its aspirations, and gradually their souls approached like shadows in the twilight, paused for a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams.
“I shall never forget this night! O my love, tell me one day you will be mine!”
“I cannot promise, you must not ask me.”