“But I’m not!,” she interrupted. “I won’t let him break it off!”
“I imagine you’re not prepared to share him,” Eric suggested drily.
“But I love him more than any one in the world!”
“That’s not enough by itself.”
She fingered her handkerchief for a moment and then broke out explosively:
“I won’t let him go!”
“How can you keep him?” Eric asked. “Will you threaten him with an action for breach of promise?”
“I’ll do anything!”
He shook his head and waited for her to calm herself.
“In the first place you couldn’t prove that there’d ever been a promise to marry,” he began. “In the next place, as it’s never been announced, you couldn’t prove damage. He’s not kept you from marrying any one else; and a jury wouldn’t give a farthing for your heart or feelings. And it’s fantastic to think that you can make a man marry you by threatening an action if he doesn’t. What kind of married life do you look forward to after that? Of course, I don’t know whether he was serious last night or whether you’d both lost your tempers; but, if he meant it, you must regard the thing as being over.”