As I came in, Reggie, who had been sitting by the table, stood up. He stared at me for a long time without saying a word. Then:
“You’ve been out with men!” he said.
“Yes,” I returned defiantly, “I have.”
“And you’ve been drinking!”
“Yes,” I said. “So have you.”
He flung me from him, and then all of a sudden he threw himself down in the chair by the table and, putting his head upon his arms, he shook with sobs. All of my anger melted away and I knelt down beside him and entreated him to forgive me. I told him just where I had been and with whom, and I said that it was all because I was tired, tired of waiting so long for him. I said:
“Reggie, no man has a right to bind a girl to a long engagement like this. Either marry me, or set me free. I am wasting my life for you.”
He said if we were to be married now, his whole future would be ruined; that he expected to be nominated to a high political position, and to marry at this stage of his career would be sheer madness.
I promised to wait for Reggie one more year; but I was very unhappy, and all the rest of that winter I could not refrain from constantly referring to our expected marriage, though I knew it irritated him for me to refer to it.