"Do you think we can ever forget Prom?" She waited for his reply. So much depended on it.
"Of course," he answered impatiently. "I've forgotten that already. We were crazy kids, that's all—youngsters trying to act smart and wild."
"Oh!" The ejaculation was soft, but it vibrated with pain. "You mean that—that you wouldn't—well, you wouldn't get drunk like that again?"
"Of course not, especially at a dance. I'm not a child any longer, Cynthia. I have sense enough now not to forfeit my self-respect again. I hope so, anyway. I haven't been drunk in the last year. A drunkard is a beastly sight, rotten. If I have learned anything in college, it is that a man has to respect himself, and I can't respect any one any longer who deliberately reduces himself to a beast. I was a beast with you a year ago. I treated you like a woman of the streets, and I abused Norry Parker's hospitality shamefully. If I can help it, I'll never act like a rotter again, I hate a prig, Cynthia, like the devil, but I hate a rotter even more. I hope I can learn to be neither."
As he spoke, Cynthia clenched her hands so tightly that the finger-nails were bruising her tender palms, but her eyes remained dry and her lips did not tremble. If he could have seen her on some parties this last year....
"You have changed a lot." Her words were barely audible. "You have changed an awful lot."
He smiled. "I hope so. There are times now when I hate myself, but I never hate myself so much as when I think of Prom. I've learned a lot in the last year, and I hope I've learned enough to treat a decent girl decently. I have never apologized to you the way I think I ought to."
"Don't!" she cried, her voice vibrant with pain. "Don't! I was more to blame than you were. Let's not talk about that."
"All right. I'm more than willing to forget it." He paused and then continued very seriously, "I can't ask you to marry me now, Cynthia—but—but are you willing to wait for me? It may take time, but I promise I'll work hard."
Cynthia's hands clenched convulsively. "No, Hugh honey," she whispered; "I'll never marry you. I—I don't love you."