There was so much to be said. The beauty of the night was throat-catching, and lifted them away from the hectic scene at Arlington Hall, and the bitter fight that to-morrow must bring. He felt her full sympathy with the attitude he must take; her first hand-grasp, as he took his seat after the speech, told him that. His hand, as the car waited before her house, lingered fearfully against hers; an electric current snapped between the two. His fancy played fitfully with fantasies that started with his lifting that warm dear hand to his kiss ... then the yielding lips ... then the mutual surrender. But like a scourge memory listed over to him the mouths he had kissed, youthfully, poignantly, casually.... No, he had done with that. This must be no mere union of bodies; love should begin with a pure communion of kindred spirits. A kiss, a caress--these were the soft persuasive preludes to the swelling finale of mating; cheapen them, wear out their springbud freshness, and the blossom of mated love must remain stunted, like a frost-warped dogwood flower,--must henceforth be soiled, like a draggled pear-blossom mired by an April downpour. Hereafter he would hold his lips--and keep hers--inviolate, virginal; the miraculous event of love consummated should not be fouled by recollections of squandered embraces, of cheap philanderings. The desire to touch and conquer the hand beside his almost overpowered him, despite his ascetic musing. Spasmodically he pulled his hand away. A force stronger than his will brought it slowly back, until it shivered against hers. Quietly, with restrained and schooled abandon, his words breathed out. "Jane ... dear ... dearer--dearest----" Her intuitive eyes read the words that were coming, before his own mind framed them. A sudden blossoming of joy surged within her, so great for a moment that it prevented speech; then, panic-stricken, she wished to postpone the inevitable question, to delay the rapture, to flee away, with the words unspoken, for just a little longer to consider the matter.... She said nothing of this; her silence, blent into the silence of the mountain at the end of the rise before them, was voluble with another message than delay or hesitation. An agony of doubt racked him. Hadn't he been mistaken all along? Wouldn't she laugh at him, for his presumption in reading even toleration in her eyes, that radiated indifferently upon things unworthy, like himself, and worthy alike? Would he dare go on? He must--even if her laugh shattered the iridescent sphere of his hopes. An impassioned eagerness to get the words out made his tone forced and unnatural. "Will you have me, Jane? Will you love me--a little? I know I've no right to speak--my affairs are so tangled, and all----" Then she raised her arm, until the hand was above his head; and her fingers touched his hair gently, caressingly, soothingly. "Jane...." His voice was rich with reverent unbelief. "Pelham dear----"