“To-night,” I persisted. “We must be married to-night. No more uncertainty and indecision and weakness. Let us begin bravely, Anita!”
“To-morrow,” she said. “But not to-night. I must think it over.”
“To-night,” I repeated. “To-morrow will be full of its own problems. This is to-night’s.”
She shook her head, and I saw that the struggle between us had begun—the struggle against her timidity and conventionality. “No, not to-night.” This in her tone for finality.
To have argued with any woman in such circumstances would have been dangerous; to have argued with her would have been fatal. To reason with a woman is to flatter her into suspecting you of weakness and herself of strength. I told the chauffeur to turn about and go slowly uptown. She settled back into her corner of the brougham. Neither of us spoke until we were passing Clairmont. Then she started out of her secure confidence in my obedience, and exclaimed: “This is not the way!” And her voice had in it the hasty call-to-arms.
“No,” I replied, determined to push the panic into a rout. “As I told you, our future shall be settled to-night.” That in my tone for finality.
A pause, then: “It has been settled,” she said, like a child that feels, yet denies, its impotence as it struggles in the compelling arms of its father. “I thought until a few minutes ago that I really intended to marry you. Now I see that I didn’t.”
“Another reason why we’re not going to your uncle’s,” said I.
She leaned forward so that I could see her face. “I cannot marry you,” she said. “I feel humble toward you, for having misled you. But it is better that you—and I—should have found out now than too late.”
“It is too late—too late to go back.”