Gently she slid her hand into his.

“I don’t feel far away, Alan.  I feel very near.  But I can’t marry you—­not now anyway.  You will have to prove to them all—­to me, too—­that you are a man a Holiday might be proud to marry.  I could forget the past.  I think I could persuade Uncle Phil and the rest to forget it, too.  They are none of them self-righteous Puritans.  They could understand, just as I understand, that a man might fall in battle and carry scars of defeat, but not be really conquered.  Alan, tell me something.  It isn’t easy to ask but I must.  Are the things I have to forget far back in the past or—­nearer?  I know they go back to Paris days, the days Miss Lottie belongs to.  Oh, yes,” as he started at that.  “I guessed that.  You mustn’t blame her.  She was merely trying to warn me.  She meant it for my good, not to be spiteful and not because she still cares, though I think she does.  And I know there are things that belong to the time after your mother died, and you didn’t care what you did because you were so unhappy.  But are they still nearer?  How close are they, Alan?”

He shook his head despairingly.

“I wish I could lie to you, Tony.  I can’t.  They are too close to be pleasant to remember.  But they never will be again.  I swear it.  Can you believe it?”

“I shall have to believe it—­be convinced of it before I could marry you.  I can’t marry you, not being certain of you, just because my heart beats fast when you come near me, because I love your voice and your kisses and would rather dance with you than to be sure of going to Heaven.  Marriage is a world without end business.  I can’t rush into it blindfold.  I won’t.”

“You don’t love me as I love you or you couldn’t reason so coldly about it,” he reproached.  “You would go blindfold anywhere—­to Hell itself even, with me.”

“I don’t know, Alan.  I could let myself go.  While we were dancing in there I am afraid I would have been willing to go even as far as you say with you.  But out here in the star-light I am back being myself.  I want to make my life into something clean and sweet and fine.  I don’t want to let myself be driven to follow weak, selfish, rash impulses and do things that will hurt other people and myself.  I don’t want to make my people sorry.  They are dearer than any happiness of my own.  They would not let me marry you now, even if I wished it.  If I did what you want and what maybe something in me wants too—­run off and marry you tomorrow without their consent—­it would break their hearts and mine, afterward when I had waked up to what I had done.  Don’t ask me, dear.  I couldn’t do it.”

“But what will you do, Tony?  Won’t you marry me ever?” Alan’s tone was helpless, desolate.  He had run up against a power stronger than any he had ever wielded, a force which left him baffled.

“I don’t know.  It will depend upon you.  A year from now, if you still want me and I am still free, if you can come to me and tell me you have lived for twelve months as a man who loves a woman ought to live, I will marry you if I love you enough; and I think—­I am sure, I shall, for I love you very much this minute.”