"Tony!"
"Well, anyway not for a long, long time. I want to go on the stage. I can't put all of myself into my work and give it to you at the same time. I don't want to get married. I don't dare to. I don't dare even let myself care too much. I want to be free."
"You want to be loved."
"Of course. Every woman does."
Alan made an impatient gesture.
"I don't mean lip-worship. You are a woman, not a piece of statuary. Come on now. Let's dance."
They danced. In her lover's arms, their feet keeping time to the syncopated, stirring rhythms of the violins, their hearts beating to a mightier harmony of nature's own brewing, Tony Holiday was far from being a piece of statuary. She was all woman, a woman very much alive and very much in love.
Alan bent over her.
"Tony, belovedest. There are more things than art in the world," he said softly. "Don't you know it, feel it? There is life. And life is bigger than your work or mine. We're both artists, but we'll be bigger artists together. Marry me now. Don't make me wait. Don't make yourself wait. You want it as much as I do. Say yes, sweetheart," he implored.
Tony shook her head vehemently. She was afraid. She knew that just now all her dreams of success in her chosen art, all her love for the dear ones at home were as nothing in comparison with this greater thing which Alan called life and which she felt surging mightily within her. But she also knew that this way lay madness, disloyalty, regret. She must be strong, strong for Alan as well as for herself.