now anyway. I haven't the right.
Perhaps in two years time, if you are still free, I shall; but not now.
It wouldn't be fair."

"Two years from now, and long before, I shall be married," said
Carlotta with a sharp little metallic note in her voice. She was trying
to keep from crying but he did not know that and winced both at her
words and tone.

"That must be as it will," he answered soberly. "I cannot do any
differently. I would if I could. It--it isn't so easy to give you up. Oh,
Carlotta! I love you."

And suddenly, unexpectedly to himself and Carlotta, he had her in his
arms and was covering her face with kisses. Carlotta's cheeks flamed. She
was no longer a lily, but a red, red rose. Never in her life had she been
so frightened, so ecstatic. With all her dainty, capricious flirtations
she had always deliberately fenced herself behind barriers. No man had
ever held her or kissed her like this, the embrace and kisses of a lover
to whom she belonged.

"Phil! Don't, dear--I mean, do, dear--I love you," she whispered.

But her words brought Phil back to his senses. His arms dropped and he
drew away, ashamed, remorseful. He was no saint. According to his way of
thinking a man might kiss a girl now and then, under impulsion of
moonshine or mischief, but lightly always, like thistledown. A man didn't
kiss a girl as he had just kissed Carlotta unless he had the right to
marry her. It wasn't playing straight.

"I'm sorry, Carlotta. I didn't mean to," he said miserably.

"I'm not. I'm glad. I think way down in my heart I've always wanted you
to kiss me, though I didn't know it would be like that. I knew your
kisses would be different, because _you_ are different."

"How am I different?" Phil's voice was humble. In his own eyes he seemed
pitifully undifferent, precisely like all the other rash, intemperate,
male fools in the world.

"You are different every way. It would take too long to tell you all of
them, but maybe you are chiefly different because I love you and I don't
love the rest. Except for Daddy. I've never loved anybody but myself
before, and when you kissed me I just seemed to feel my _meness_ going
right out of me, as if I stopped belonging to myself and began to belong
to you forever and ever. It scared me but--I liked it."

"You darling!" fatuously. "Carlotta, will you marry me?"

It was out at last--the words she claimed she had brought him up the
mountain to say--the words he had willed not to