"You really care?"
"I care in my own way."
They sat together by the fire, and Peter held her lightly beside him. This was no conquest, or rapture of intimacy. He could not believe that he had really moved her. The more he grew alive to her physical presence and the implication of her surrender, the more he desired a guarantee that their love should be permanent and true. He wanted an assurance that this adventure was not ignoble. He wanted again to be justified.
He grew every instant more sensible of their intimacy. He tried to persuade himself that this was the real and perfect thing; that the stir of his senses, under which he weakly drooped, was the call of two passionate hearts. He wavered absurdly. Once he suffered an impulse to take Vivette brutally, without disguise, as an offered pastime. Then he shrank from so immediate a declension from his vanishing idealism, and inwardly clamoured that he loved her. There he ultimately fixed his mind. He looked at Vivette and found in her an increasing gravity. She was becoming aware of Peter's trouble. She was beginning to understand it, and to be seriously concerned. But Peter mistook her dawning compassion. He caught eagerly at the sober spirit which now possessed her. He suddenly heard himself propose to her.
"Will you marry me, Vivette?"
He saw the laughter leap into her eyes; but, even as he shrank, it passed, and they lit with affectionate pity.
"Peter," she said very gently, "do you know what you are talking about?"
"I have asked you to marry me."
"Of course not."
"You do not care enough?" he suggested.