She had expressed herself still more insistently on "happiness"--
(on hers, his, theirs; the two were one, in her view)--and on a future
shared together. In just what inadequate way had he tried to fend her off?
Had he said, "I shall have to wait?" Or had his blundering tongue said,
instead, "We should have to wait?"--or even worse, "We shall have to wait?"
In any event, he had used that cowardly, temporizing word "wait"--for she
had instantly seized upon it. Why, yes, indeed; she was willing to wait;
she had expected to wait....
He turned out from an avenue lighted with electric globes, past which the
snowflakes were drifting, and entered a quieter and darker side-street. In
the dusk she had put up her face, expecting to be kissed; and he, partly
out of pity for the expression that came when he hesitated, and partly out
of pure embarrassment and inexpertness, had lightly touched her lips. That
had sealed it, possibly. He saw her sitting in rapt fancy in her bedroom--
if not more vocal in the rooms below. He saw her writing to an unseen
mother in a tone of joyful complacency, and looking at her finger for a
ring which he could not place there.
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