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.

“Aren’t you going to take it?” he said.  “It’s yours.”

“And what do you suppose my family would say if I told them Mr. Ditmar had given it to me?”

“Come on, I’ll drive you home, I’ll tell them I gave it to you, that we’re going to be married,” he announced recklessly.

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed in consternation.  “You couldn’t.  You said so yourself—­that you didn’t want, any one to know, now.  I’ll get on the trolley.”

“And the roses?” he asked.

She pressed them to her face, and chose one.  “I’ll take this,” she said, laying the rest on the seat....

He waited until he saw her safely on the trolley car, and then drove slowly homeward in a state of amazement.  He had been on the verge of announcing himself to the family in Fillmore Street as her prospective husband!  He tried to imagine what that household was like; and again he found himself wondering why she had not consented to his proposal.  And the ever-recurring question presented itself—­was he prepared to go that length?  He didn’t know.  She was beyond him, he had no clew to her, she was to him as mysterious as a symphony.  Certain strains of her moved him intensely—­the rest was beyond his grasp....  At supper, while his children talked and laughed boisterously, he sat silent, restless, and in spite of their presence the house seemed appallingly empty.