We
must decide to-day one way or the other. Now is the accepted time;
now is the day of salvation. I couldn't let you wait, and slip by
degrees into some vague arrangement we hardly contemplated
definitely. To do that would be to sin against my ideas of
decorum. Whatever we do we must do, as the apostle says, decently
and in order, with a full sense of the obligations it imposes upon
us. We must say to one another in so many words, 'I am yours; you
are mine;' or we must part forever. I have told you my whole soul;
I have bared my heart before you. You may take it or leave it; but
for my dignity's sake, I put it to you now, choose one way or the
other."
Alan looked at her hard. Her face was crimson by this with
maidenly shame; but she made no effort to hide or avert it. For
the good of humanity, this question must be settled once for all;
and no womanish reserve should make her shrink from settling it.
Happier maidens in ages to come, when society had reconstructed
itself on the broad basis of freedom, would never have to go
through what she was going through that moment.
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