Nan was fighting desperately to gain time. She needed it more than anything—time to think, time to weigh the pros and cons of the matter, time to decide. The past was pulling at her heart-strings, filling her with a sudden terror of the promise she had just given Roger.
"I can't tell you anything now," she said rather breathlessly. "I did try—a little while ago, and you wouldn't listen. You—you must give me a few days—you must! If you don't, I'll say 'no' now—at once!" her voice rising excitedly.
She was overwrought, strung up to such a pitch that she hardly knew what she was saying. She had been through a good deal in the last hour or two and Trenby realised it. Suddenly that grim determination of his to force her promise, to bind her his here and now, yielded to an overwhelming flood of tenderness.
"It shall be as you wish, Nan," he said very gently. "I know I'm asking everything of you, and that you're frightened and upset to-day. I ought not to have spoken. And—and I'm a lot older than you."
"Oh, it isn't that," replied Nan hastily, fearing he might be feeling sore over the disparity in their respective ages. She did not want him to be hurt about things that would never have counted at all had she loved him.
"Well, if I wait till Monday—that's four days—will that do?" he asked.
"Yes. I'll tell you then."
"Thank you"—very simply. He lifted her hands to his lips. "And remember," he added desperately, "that I love you, Nan—you're my whole world."
He paced the short length of the room and back, and when he came to her side again, every trace of emotion was wiped out of his face.
"Now I'm going to take you back home. Mrs. Denman"—smiling faintly—"says she'll put 'an 'assock' in the car for your damaged leg to rest on, so with rugs and that coat you were so averse to bringing I think you'll be all right."