For the instant he lost control of himself.
“What you are,” he replied. “Do you realize—can you ever realize what your faith in me has been to me?”
She appeared to ignore this.
“I did not mean to say that you have not made many things clear, which once were obscure, as I wrote you. You have convinced me that true belief, for instance, is the hardest thing in the world, the denial of practically all these people, who profess to believe, represent. The majority of them insist that humanity is not to be trusted...”
They had reached, in an incredibly brief time, the corner of Park Street.
“When are you leaving?” he asked, in a voice that sounded harsh in his own ears.
“Come!” she said gently, “I'm not going in yet, for a while.”
The Park lay before them, an empty, garden filled with checquered light and shadows under the moon. He followed her across the gravel, glistening with dew, past the statue of the mute statesman with arm upraised, into pastoral stretches—a delectable country which was theirs alone. He did not take it in, save as one expression of the breathing woman at his side. He was but partly conscious of a direction he had not chosen. His blood throbbed violently, and a feeling of actual physical faintness was upon him. He was being led, helplessly, all volition gone, and the very idea of resistance became chimerical....
There was a seat under a tree, beside a still lake burnished by the moon. It seemed as though he could not bear the current of her touch, and yet the thought of its removal were less bearable... For she had put her own hand out, not shyly, but with a movement so fraught with grace, so natural that it was but the crowning bestowal.
“Alison!” he cried, “I can't ask it of you. I have no right—”