She nodded with tears in her eyes.
He took his arm from round her waist, and she felt very lonely.
“But I’m always going to love you,” he said.
She felt still more alone.
“Peter,” she said, “I can’t explain things very well, but I—I—don’t want you to go away feeling as if—”
Manners’ eyes lifted up.
“As if it was all over?” he asked eagerly.
“Almost that, Peter,” she said. “I—I can’t say yes now—but God knows, Peter, perhaps sometime—I—I can.”
She was thinking of the flighty and moody Aladdin, who had loved her so long, and whom (she suddenly realized in spite of the words just spoken) she loved back with all her heart and soul.
Honor rose hot in her to give Peter a final answer now and forever—no. But she looked into his eyes and could not. He looked at his watch.