She reached out to him a trembling hand, and realized that he was standing propped against the wall beside her. He stooped quickly, grasping her cold fingers.
“Frances, we’ve got to face it. You may as well give in to circumstances. We’re both of us helpless.”
His voice had an odd urgency. It was as if he pleaded with her.
“Oh, I quite realize that,” she said, and she strove to force a practical note into her reply. “We’ve been very unlucky, but what can’t be cured must be endured. We shall come through it somehow.”
She would have removed her hand, despite the physical reluctance to relinquish the warmth of his, but he held it fast.
“Oh no!” she returned briskly. “I am not so selfish and unreasonable as that. We must just make the best of it. We must just—just——”
She broke off. Her teeth were chattering again, and in the effort to check them, she forgot the words she was trying to utter.
She felt him bend lower, and found him kneeling by her side. “It’s no good offering you my coat,” he said. “There’s no warmth in it. Besides, it’s wet through. But I’m not going to let you die of cold for all that—just for the sake of an idiotic convention. Frances—sweetheart—I’m going to hold you in my arms.”
Fear stabbed her—sharp and agonizing. “Oh no!” she said, and drew herself back from him. “Not here! Not now!”
Her hand remained locked in his, but he paused.
She gasped her quivering answer. “Because—because—I am not sure if I have done right in—in letting you make love to me. I have not been sure—all day.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t—possibly—know yet.”
“Ah, yesterday!” The word came almost with a cry. “I was mad yesterday,” she said.
“Why mad?” he reasoned. “My dear, listen to me! Here we are—far away from everywhere—miles away from civilized society. What does it matter—what can it matter—if we throw aside these idiotic conventions just for one night? You know in your heart that it doesn’t matter one jot.”
“It does matter,” she gasped back painfully, still striving vainly to free the hand he held so closely. “It does matter.”
“That means you don’t trust me,” he said.
“I would if I could,” she made desperate answer. “But—but——”
She heard him get up from his knees, and breathed a sigh of thankfulness.