“It’s been a wonderful day!” she said.

“The greatest ever!” he agreed.  And his ardour, mounting again, swept away the unwonted mood of tenderness and awe she had inspired in him, made him bold to suggest the plan which had been the subject of an ecstatic contemplation.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he said, “we’ll take a little run down to Boston and have dinner together.  We’ll be there in an hour, and back by ten o’clock.”

“To Boston!” she repeated.  “Now?”

“Why not?” he said, stopping the car.  “Here’s the road—­it’s a boulevard all the way.”

It was not so much the proposal as the passion in his voice, in his touch, the passion to which she felt herself responding that filled her with apprehension and dismay, and yet aroused her pride and anger.

“I told you I had to be home,” she said.

“I’ll have you home by ten o’clock; I promise.  We’re going to be married, Janet,” he whispered.

“Oh, if you meant to marry me you wouldn’t ask me to do this!” she cried.  “I want to go back to Hampton.  If you won’t take me, I’ll walk.”

She had drawn away from him, and her hand was on the door.  He seized her arm.

“For God’s sake, don’t take it that way!” he cried, in genuine alarm.  “All I meant was—­that we’d have a nice little dinner.  I couldn’t bear to leave you, it’ll be a whole week before we get another day.  Do you suppose I’d—­I’d do anything to insult you, Janet?”

With her fingers still tightened over the door-catch she turned and looked at him.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.  “Sometimes I think you would.  Why shouldn’t you?  Why should you marry me?  Why shouldn’t you try to do with me what you’ve done with other women?  I don’t know anything about the world, about life.  I’m nobody.  Why shouldn’t you?”

“Because you’re not like the other women—­that’s why.  I love you—­won’t you believe it?” He was beside himself with anxiety.  “Listen—­I’ll take you home if you want to go.  You don’t know how it hurts me to have you think such things!”

“Well, then, take me home,” she said.  It was but gradually that she became pacified.  A struggle was going on within her between these doubts of him he had stirred up again and other feelings aroused by his pleadings.  Night fell, and when they reached the Silliston road the lights of Hampton shone below them in the darkness.

“You’d better let me out here,” she said.  “You can’t drive me home.”

He brought the car to a halt beside one of the small wooden shelters built for the convenience of passengers.

“You forgive me—­you understand, Janet?” he asked.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to think,” she said, and suddenly clung to him.  “I—­I forgive you.  I oughtn’t to suspect such things, but I’m like that.  I’m horrid and I can’t help it.”  She began to unbutton the coat he had bought for her.